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LINCOLN'S 

SPEECHES, INAUGURALS, 

AND LETTERS 



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SELECTIONS 

FROM THE 

ADDRESSES, INAUGURALS, 
AND LETTERS 

OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
BY 

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CONTENTS 

Introduction : PAGE 

Abraham Lincoln ix 

Biographical Note xxxvii 

Addresses, Inaugurals, and Letters : 

I. To the People of Sangamon, March 9, 1832 . 1 
II. Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Spring- 
field, Illinois, January 27, 1837 ... 3 

III. At the Second Presbyterian Church, Spring- 

field, Illinois, December, 1839 . . .11 

IV. In Reply to Stephen A. Douglas, delivered at 

Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854 . . 15 

V. From a Letter to Joshua F. Speed, August 24, 

1855 30 

VI. From a Speech discussing the Decision in the 
Dred Scott Case, delivered at Springfield, 

Illinois, June 26, 1857 35 

VII. Speech, known as the "Divided House" 
Speech, before the Republican State Con- 
vention, at Springfield, Illinois, June 17, 

1858 49 

VIII. Speech in Reply to Judge Douglas's Criticism 
of the "Divided House" Speech, delivered 
at the Tremont House, Chicago, July 10, 
1858 65 



Vlll 



CONTENTS 



IX. 
X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 
XXI. 

XXII. 



From Lincoln's Reply to Douglas, at Alton 

Illinois, October 15, 1858 . 
From Address at Cooper Institute, New 

York, February 27, 1860 . 
Farewell to the Citizens of Springfield, Feb 

ruary 1, 1861 

From Addresses delivered on the Journey 

to Washington, February 11-27, 1861 
Address in Independence Hall in Philadel- 
phia, February 22, 1861 . 
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861 
Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862 
Reply to Committee from Chicago, Septem 

ber 13, 1862 

The Emancipation Proclamation, January 1 

1863 

Reply to the Workingmen of Manchester. 

England, January 19, 1863 
Reply to J. C. Conkling, dated August 26 

1863 

The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863 
The Second Inaugural Address, March 4 

1865 

The Last Public Address, April 11, 1865 



Notes 



THE SPEECHES, INAUGURALS, AND 
LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

INTRODUCTION 

Abraham Lincoln belongs to history, and only 
secondarily and incidentally, as it were, to litera- 
ture. He was one of the great makers of history, 
and he is enrolled among the tragic heroes of his- 
tory. When we think of him, we think first of all 
of the victorious President who brought us through 
the most perilous crisis in our annals. He is the 
great captain of Walt Whitman's poem, which has 
become one of our national hymns, — the wise and 
valiant captain who steered our ship of state through 
the tempestuous seas which threatened to wreck 
our national hopes and ideals, and with them the 
democratic hopes of the civilized world. 

But Lincoln our chief of state instantly evokes 
the image of Lincoln the man; for he is the most 
human, the most intimately known, and the most 
vividly realizable of all our presidents. At once 



Xll ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

personality in them. Waves of feeling pass through 
them and over them — slight ripples here, great 
billows there. It is because the soul of Lincoln 
is reflected even in his formal state papers that 
they have a literary as well as a political interest. 
Let us substantiate this statement. Here, in the 
midst of his first inaugural, is a notable passage: — 

To those who really love the Union may I not 
speak, before entering upon so grave a matter as 
the destruction of our national fabric with all its 
benefits, its memories, and its hopes? . . . Will 
you hazard so desperate a step while any portion 
of the ills you fly from have no real existence ? 

That is unlike the usual type of state paper (and 
note, in passing, the echo from " Hamlet" here). 
And the second inaugural is even more striking 
in its sustained emotion : " Fondly do we hope ..." 
" With malice toward none ..." Yes, this is liter- 
ature because a great heart beats in it, and naturally 
uses the language of the imagination, uses it with 
impressive effect. Compare the colder and re- 
served dignity of Washington's Farewell Address 
with such writing; what a difference! 

To study Lincoln's style, then, is to study Lin- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN Xlll 

coin's soul as it manifests itself in the best speech 
of which he was capable. For the style, as a 
great French critic said, is the man. Le style est 
rhomme meme. This is preeminently true of a man 
so natural and genuine as Lincoln was. So that to 
consider his writings from the literary point of 
view is to consider them at once for their meaning, 
that is for their truth and reasonableness, and for 
their distinctive qualities of expressiveness. It is 
to become more conscious of the secret of their 
effectiveness, — their rhythm, their strength and 
felicity of word and phrase, their imagery, their 
illustration. We but look into them more in- 
tently, more curiously, and be it said, more lovingly 
than we do when we are considering only their 
bearing on the great political questions which they 
discuss. They interest us supremely as revealing 
the spirit of Lincoln. It is that spirit which gives 
the words life and color and movement. 

And now — to take up the second of the points 
mentioned above — it is not fair to these writings of 
Lincoln to regard them as the easy and unstudied 
utterances of a man who did not care whether 
they had literary qualities or not. They were 



xiv ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

carefully wrought out by one who was very partic- 
ular about the way in which he said things. Lin- 
coln, from his early youth on, took great pains to 
speak and write well. He was very ambitious: 
he wanted to be a politician, — a great politician, 
perchance, — and he knew that the politician's mas- 
ter key to success was effective language. So he 
commenced early to study the art of saying things; 
and he labored continuously in many interesting 
ways to improve and enrich his powers of expression 
until he was able to produce a masterpiece like his 
Gettysburg Address. There is no more striking in- 
stance than this of the wise recognition of the impor- 
tance of learning to speak and write well. It is not 
too much to say that he owed his political eminence 
to his unremitting effort to use his mother tongue 
skilfully and persuasively. 

In trying, however, to account for Lincoln's success 
as a persuader of men we must not fail to take account 
of the most powerful factor in it. Lincoln wanted 
to learn how to speak the truth, to fit words to things 
with exactness and clearness. He loved truth more 
than he loved place or anything else in this world. 
He was ambitious, as we have said; but he never 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN XV 

sacrificed truth to ambition. His power over men 
lay largely in his profound and obvious sincerity. 
He made them feel his determination to get at the 
truth for himself, and to present it in its own vic- 
torious power to others. This, we are assured by 
those who followed him in his great debates with 
Douglas, gave him his advantage over a man who 
was master of all the resources and devices of the 
platform speaker. It was a triumph over many 
disadvantages — his awkward gait, his homely fea- 
tures (as they were generally considered), and his 
shabby appearance. 

Lincoln had no use for the mere thrust and parry 
and fence of the speaker who talks to win. He had 
only scorn for what he describes in his humorous way 
as the " specious and fantastic arguments by which 
a man may prove that a horse chestnut is a chest- 
nut horse." He had no patience with the trimming 
and hedging and dodging which are so often resorted 
to by vote-catching politicians, or with what he char- 
acterizes so admirably as " sophistical contrivances 
groping for some middle ground between right and 
wrong." He never occupied that middle ground. 
His was a whole-hearted devotion to the truth as he 



XVI ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

saw it and felt it, and this gave him his ascendency 
over men. It winged his language, and sent it 
home to the minds and consciences of his hearers. 

Of the beginnings of his training as a master of 
discourse we have his own striking account in a con- 
versation reported by a gentleman who was travel- 
ling with him just after he had given his famous 
Cooper Institute Address: — 

"I want very much to know," said the gentle- 
man to Lincoln, "how you got this unusual power 
of 'putting things.' It must have been a matter 
of education. No man has it by nature alone. 
What has your education been ? " 

"Well, as to education, the newspapers are 
correct. I never went to school more than six 
months of my life. But, as you say, this must be a 
product of culture in some form. I have been 
putting the question you ask me to myself while 
you have been talking. I say this; that among 
my earliest recollections, I remember how, when 
a mere child, I used to get irritated when any- 
body talked to me in a way I could not under- 
stand. I don't think I ever got angry at any- 
thing else in my life. But that always disturbed 
my temper and has ever since. I can remember 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN xvii 

going to my little bedroom, after hearing the 
neighbors talk of an evening, with my father, 
and spend no small part of the night walking up 
and down, and trying to make out the exact 
meaning of some of their, to me, dark sayings. 
I could not sleep, though I often tried to, when I 
got in such a hunt after an idea, until I caught it ; 
and when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied 
until I had repeated it over and over, until I had 
put it in language plain enough, as I thought, 
for any boy I knew to comprehend. This was 
a kind of passion with me, and it has stuck- by 
me; for I am never easy now, when I am han- 
dling a thought, till I have bounded it north and 
bounded it south, and bounded it east and bounded 
it west. Perhaps that accounts for the charac- 
teristic you observe in my speeches, though I never 
put the two things together before." 

^ There could not have been a more effective dis- 
cipline for a writer or speaker than that. It was sup- 
plemented by unremitting practice. The boy used 
up every shred of paper he could find to write on. 

His handwriting was unusually good from the first 

not the rough and uneven hand of the typical back- 
woodsman. And he paid no less attention to speak- 



XV111 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ing. He delivered stump speeches to his compan- 
ions, he cultivated his gift of story-telling and talked 
and " yarned " endlessly in stores and taverns to ad- 
miring groups. He joined with the promising young 
men in Springfield to found a debating society or 
lyceum, and advised his young friend William H. 
Herndon (afterward his law partner and his biogra- 
pher) to follow the same method of self-improvement : 
"You young men get together and form a 'Rough 
and Ready Club/ and have regular meetings and 
speeches. Take in everybody you can get." The 
address which Lincoln delivered in January, 1837, 
before the Springfield Young Men's Lyceum on the 
Perpetuation of our Political Institutions is striking 
evidence of the effort he was making to perfect him- 
self in the art of expression. It is the obvious " lit- 
erary " effort of a young man in training. But it is 
very well done. Here is a typical passage which 
shows the formal balanced style of the older 
orators whom Lincoln was studying. It is the 
more worth while because it expresses that rev- 
erence for law which characterized Lincoln his life 
through — a reverence which we are sadly lacking 
in to-day: — 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN xix 

Let reverence for the laws be breathed by 
every American mother to the lisping babe that 
prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, 
in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in 
primers, spelling-books, and in almanacs ; let it be 
preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legisla- 
tive halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And 
in short, let it become the political religion of the 
nation; and let the old and the young, the rich 
and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes 
and tongues, and colors, and conditions, sacrifice 
unceasingly upon its altars. 

Compare the somewhat formal and high-flown 
quality of this with the terse, compact, and direct 
manner of Lincoln's mature writing, and you get a 
good idea of the development of his style. It be- 
came more natural and simple, more individual 
and weighty. 

We cannot help marvelling at the results which 
Lincoln obtained by his self-education, when we 
realize how slow and laborious was the process. 
Until he was twenty-one years old he was no more 
than his father's servant, tied to the little homestead 
in the wilds. In the short autobiography which 



XX ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

he wrote in 1860 for campaign purposes, he thus 
records the simple facts of his scanty and retarded 
education : — 

Abraham now thinks that the aggregate of all 
his schooling did not amount to one year. . . . 
What he has in the way of education he has picked 
up. After he was twenty-three, and had separated 
from his father, he studied English grammar — 
imperfectly of course, but so as to speak and to 
write as well as he now does. He studied and 
nearly mastered the six books of Euclid since he 
was a member of Congress. He regrets his want 
of education, and does what he can to supply the 
want. 

Lincoln here uses the word education in its ordi- 
nary sense of school and college education. As a mat- 
ter of fact, of education in the broader sense of the 
term he had received a good deal — and in a sense, 
too, which includes literary education. For, strange 
as it may seem, Lincoln owed very much in those 
rude days to books; we might almost say he owed 
everything in the way of culture to them. He had 
very few books to read; very few were obtainable, 
although he scoured the country for miles round; but 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXI 

the few he did have were mighty influences in his life. 
He got more out of them than most boys get out of 
an unlimited supply or out of the resources of a 
Carnegie library. He read and reread, and pondered 
and thoroughly assimilated what he found in them. 
That was why they yielded such treasure to him. 
He did not merely dip into them or skim them. He 
read them eagerly and with a definite purpose. 
That is the reading which counts. He realized that 
they were his only means of culture, his only way 
of getting into touch with the larger distant world of 
civilization, his only means of contact with history 
and human culture; and he made the most of them. 
We get our most vivid glimpse into this world of 
books in Mrs. Eleanor Atkinson's valuable account 
of " Lincoln's Boyhood," which is woven out of remi- 
niscences of his cousin and playmate, Dennis Hanks. 
We hear the ambitious lad saying : — 

"Denny, the things I want to know is in books. 
My best friend's the man who'll git me one." 
"Well," comments old Dennis, "books wasn't as 
plenty as wild cats ; but I got him one by cutting 
cord wood. It had lots o' yarns in it." [The book 
was the " Arabian Nights. "J "I reckon Abe read 



XX11 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

that book a dozen times an' knowed all the yarns 
by heart. He didn't have nothin' much else to 
read excep' Aunt Sairy's Bible. He cut four cords 
of wood onct to git one stingy little slice of a book. 
It was a life o' Washington, an' he'd lay over the 
Statoots o' Indiany half the night. We'd git hold 
o' a newspaper onct in a while, an' Abe larned 
Henry Clay's speeches by heart. He liked the 
stories in the Bible, too, an' he got a little book o' 
fables some'ers." 

Here we have mentioned a majority of the books 
which young Lincoln owned. The complete list seems 
to be : the two text-books, Weems's " Life of Washing- 
ton " and a small history of the United States, together 
with a Webster's spelling-book and dictionary, the 
Bible, ^Esop's Fables, " Arabian Nights/ 7 " Rob- 
inson Crusoe," " Pilgrim's Progress," and Franklin's 
" Autobiography." Then we must add Clay's 
speeches and a life of this admired statesman, and 
finally some law books — those Statutes of Indiana 
above mentioned and a mutilated copy of Black- 
stone's " Commentaries " which he rescued from a 
rubbish barrel. This was good solid diet; there 
was no trash in it. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN xxni 

The list is characteristic of Lincoln's interest in 
books and of his reading habit throughout his life. 
He did not read much or widely; he had nothing 
of the scholar's interest in books. But he liked the 
great books. He kept by him and read continually 
the two greatest books there are in English: the 
Bible and Shakespeare. His speeches are full of 
the echoes of these. The influence of the Bible 
upon his style is obvious; it confirmed his native 
tendency to simple dignity and directness of speech. 
There is not a nobler influence nor a better an- 
tidote to vulgarity and pompousness. In fact, the 
decline of the influence of the Bible has undoubtedly 
been a factor in the sad deterioration of our speech. 
Lincoln's vocabulary and sentence structure are of 
the Biblical type; the diction is simple Saxon; the 
sentences short, firm, and clear-cut. Again let us 
be concrete. Note the Biblical cast of this passage 
from the second inaugural, and the strong, sure 
tread of the sentences: — 

Both [parties, North and South] read the same Bible 
and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid 
against the other. It may seem strange that any men 
should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing 



XXIV ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

their bread from the sweat of other men's faces ; but let 
us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers 
of both could not be answered. That of neither has 
been answered fully. The Almighty has his own pur- 
poses. . . . 

Or take some passage which illustrates the 
quality of simple lucidity in diction and clearness 
of structure which are the peculiar excellences of 
the Biblical manner, — this, from the first inau- 
gural, will serve: — 

Physically speaking, we cannot separate ; we cannot 
remove our respective sections from each other, nor 
build an impassable wall between them. A husband 
and wife may be divorced, and go out of the pres- 
ence and beyond the reach of each other, but the 
different parts of our country cannot do this. They 
cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, 
either amicable or hostile, must continue between 
them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse 
more advantageous or more satisfactory after separa- 
tion than before? Can aliens make treaties easier 
than friends can make laws ? Can treaties be more 
faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can 
among friends ? Suppose you go to war, you cannot 
fight always ; and when, after much loss on both sides 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXV 

and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical 
questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you. 

But we have been led away from a consideration 
of Lincoln's reading — how much it counted in 
his life and yet how little there was of it — to ex- 
amples of its influence, especially the influence of 
the Bible, upon his style. The influence of Shake- 
speare is not so great. It came rather later in life, 
and then it was strong and constant. Lincoln 
read the plays continually; he would often read 
parts of them aloud. 1 He discussed them frequently 
and sought the views of actors on the meaning of 
certain passages. But there is little trace in his 
writings of a Shakespearian affluence and rich- 
ness of diction. Lincoln frequently slips in a Shake- 
spearian phrase, or an apt line or two, as in the 
instance we have already drawn attention to; and 
that is enough to give to his writings a literary 

1 Writing to Mr. James H. Hackett, the actor, in 1863, 
he says : " Some of Shakespeare's plays I have never read; 
while others I have gone over perhaps as frequently as any 
unprofessional reader. Among the latter are ' Lear/ 
* Richard III/ ' Henry VIII/ ; Hamlet/ and especially 
*. Macbeth.' I think nothing equals ' Macbeth.' " 



XXVI ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

savor which the alert and educated reader cannot 
but notice and take pleasure in. 

Finally, in regard to books and reading, we must 
not slight the law books, — the Statutes and the Black- 
stone. Their influence was also an influence towards 
clearness and precision. To be sure, the language of 
the law is cumbersome in the extreme, — endlessly 
repetitious; but it aims to be unequivocal and 
exact, and these were the virtues that attracted 
Lincoln. He loved the logic of the law, its quest 
of fairness and justice, its consideration of both 
sides of an argument, its concern with the precise 
meaning of words — a matter in which Lincoln 
was tireless. Lincoln tried to carry these qualities 
into his political argument and debate. He became 
famous in his law practice for his clear statements 
to the jury. He was impressively fair and just to 
his opponents. He did not browbeat or exaggerate 
or misrepresent. It is true, as Professor Paul 
Shorey so well said in speaking at a Lincoln cele- 
bration, that "the law is a study which makes a 
small man cunning and a large man sagacious. " 
Lincoln was a large man, and his reading — from 
that first eager conning of the Statutes and Black- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXVll 

stone to his late training and practice as a lawyer — 
made him sagacious as well as keen, orderly minded 
as well as astute, just and fair as well as trenchant 
and powerful as a debater. It ripened the eager 
politician into the cautious statesman. 

There are other qualities of Lincoln's nature 
reflected in his writings of which note must be taken 
— certain native endowments which enter into the 
texture of his style and genius. He was powerful, 
determined, and courageous; but he was likewise 
kindly and tender. He was deeply earnest; but 
his earnestness was sweetened and saved from harsh- 
ness and excess by his humor. Kindliness, tender- 
ness, and humor gave color and graciousness to 
his style. 

Of all these traits his humor is most commonly 
known. It served him best. What a salutary and 
saving quality real humor is ! How much we miss 
it in the Olympian gravity of the great President 
whom we can often compare or contrast so profitably 
with Lincoln, the heroic Washington. Humor is 
a precious form of imagination. To be able to 
see the humorous side of a thing is to be protected 
against one-sidedness; it is the first and essential 



xxvill ABE AH AM LINCOLN 

step to seeing all round a situation or proposition, 
and is therefore an ingredient of fair-mindedness. 
It is also an element of humility. It protects 
a man against himself and his own egotism, as 
well as against others. A happy illustration is 
Lincoln's retort to the zealous admirer who shouted 
as he greeted Lincoln at a reception, "I believe 
in God Almighty and Abraham Lincoln!" To 
which came the quick reply: " You're more than 
half right, sir." A humorous story was Lincoln's 
favorite way of escaping from difficult interviews. 
Joking was his diversion in his heavy hours, a 
refuge from his troubles and melancholy. Fur- 
thermore, it flavored his speeches with a quaint 
homeliness in anecdote or allusion to which he owed 
not a little of his hold upon the ruder spirits. For 
example, he is alluding in his first debate with 
Douglas to the way in which the judge referred to 
him as a "kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman," 
and meets the patronizing air of the phrase with 
inimitable humor. " As the judge had complimented 
me with these pleasant titles (I must confess to 
my weakness), I was a little ' taken,' for it came 
from a great man. I was not very much accus- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXIX 

tomed to flattery, and it came sweeter to me. I was 
rather like the Hoosier with the gingerbread, 
when he said he reckoned he loved it better than 
any other man, and got less of it." There was, to 
be sure, an element of coarseness at times in Lincoln's 
humor; that sort of grossness commonly styled 
"Rabelaisian" (after the great French writer, Rabe- 
lais), which is a survival of those early days among 
the rough fellows of the frontier; but we meet 
none of it in the literary legacy which we cherish. 
Of flashes and sallies of humor and wit there are 
fewer and fewer as we proceed, until in the speeches 
of the presidential years they are quite rare. One 
typical instance is his reply to the committee 
which urged him to issue a proclamation of inde- 
pendence. He remarked: "I do not want to issue 
a document that the whole world will see must 
necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull 
against the comet." His stjde becomes grave and 
solemn; it has that "high seriousness" which our 
great English critic, Matthew Arnold, says is the 
note of the grand style in literature. If we hesitate 
to use the phrase "grand style" as suitable, it is 
because of the extreme simplicity of much of Lin- 



XXX ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

coin's writing and oratory. Could there possibly 
be greater plainness than in this paragraph from the 
Cooper Institute Address ? 

You say we are sectional. We deny it. That 
makes an issue; and the burden of proof is upon 
you. You produce your proof; and what is it? 
Why, that our party has no existence in your sec- 
tion — gets no votes in your section. The fact is 
substantially true; but does it prove the issue? 
If it does, then in case we should, without change 
of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we 
should thereby cease to be sectional. You ca/inot 
escape this conclusion ; and yet are you willing to 
abide by it ? If you are, you will probably soon 
find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we 
shall get votes in your section this very year. 
You will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly 
is, that your proof does not touch this issue. The 
fact that we get no votes in your section is a fact 
of your making, and not of ours. And if there be 
fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, 
and remains so until you show that we repel you 
by some wrong principle or practice. If we do 
repel you by any wrong principle or practice, the 
fault is ours ; but this brings you to where you ought 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXXI 

to have started — to a discussion of the right or 
wrong of our principle. 

The force of plainness can no further go. It is 
the mature fruit of that early boyish passion to 
see clearly and to state everything clearly. It was 
wonderfully effective for its purpose; and the 
nature of that effectiveness is well indicated by 
Lincoln's biographers in their comments on the 
reception of this address: " Such was the apt choice 
of words, the easy precision of sentences, the simple 
strength of propositions, the fairness of every point 
he assumed, and the force of every conclusion he 
drew, that his listeners followed him with the interest 
and delight a child feels in its easy mastery of a 
plain sum in arithmetic." This plainness, this " in- 
teresting and delightful" and convincing plainness, 
this limpid lucidity, is the basic virtue of Lincoln's 
style. It is not the lucidity of the word or of the 
sentence merely; but the lucidity which illuminates 
whole arguments and long statements. We find it 
in the admirable narrative of events and clear state- 
ments of issues in the first message to Congress. 
We find it in sections of the first inaugural, — for 
instance, in the paragraphs devoted to the conten- 



XXXli ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tion that "the union of these states is perpetual," 
and in those which deal with the rights and rela- 
tions of minorities. We find it again in the closely 
knit paragraphs of his Springfield speech (the 
"house divided against itself" speech) and of some 
speeches in the debate with Douglas. 

But united with this quality of clearness are 
those other qualities to which we have also alluded 
before; those which manifest the deeper feelings 
of Lincoln's heart. The Springfield speech itself 
closes with such a passage: how moving it is! 

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and 
conducted by, its own undoubted friends — those 
whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the 
work, who do care for the result. Two years 
ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over 
thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this 
under the single impulse of resistance to a common 
danger, with every external circumstance against us. 
Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, 
we gathered from the four winds, and formed 
and fought the battle through, under the con- 
stant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered 
enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now? — 
now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissev- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXXlli 

ered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. 
We shall not fail — if we stand firm, we shall not 
fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes 
delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure 
to come. 

Of this quality of deep feeling, expressed in the 
simplest language, we have the noblest example 
in the Gettysburg Address. There are the exquisite 
fineness and that other quality of tenderness, of 
compassionate humanity and imaginative sympathy, 
which the tragic experiences of the war matured 
in him. Examples might be cited from both 
speeches and letters. Perhaps the most classically 
beautiful of them is the letter of condolence to Mrs. 
Bixby, worthy, by reason of qualities as rare and 
indefinable as is the aroma of the Gettysburg Ad- 
dress, to take a place of honor with that incom- 
parable speech. Here it is; it cannot be too often 
quoted : — 

November 21, 1864. 

Dear Madam : — I have been shown in the 

files of the War Department a statement of the 

Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are 

the mother of five sons who have died gloriously 



XXXIV ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruit- 
less must be any words of mine which should at- 
tempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so 
overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tender- 
ing to you the consolation that may be found 
in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. 
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage 
the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you 
only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, 
and the solemn pride that must be yours to have 
laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. 
Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 

Abraham Lincoln. 

With that we may close. It is as perfect in its 
way as a flawless lyric poem. It enshrines those 
qualities by which Lincoln endeared himself to 
the heart of a people, and at the same time it 
gives him rank with the masters of our English 
tongue. 

This introduction has been devoted exclusively to 
the endeavor to put the young student in the way 
of finding and feeling those qualities in Lincoln's 
writings which give them high rank as literature, 
and have won for them golden tributes from the most 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXXV 

exacting of modern critics. Following the maxim 
with which we started, that " the style is the man," 
we have tried to indicate the excellences of Lin- 
coln's style in terms of the noble traits of Lincoln's 
manhood. To the exemplary power of that man- 
hood we always return. The final value of the study 
of the writings of any great nature lies in the edify- 
ing contact with that nature, the enrichment and 
refinement of our own by it. 

And to-day the life and character of Lincoln, as 
we may reach them through the study of his distinc- 
tive writings and speeches, need all the emphasis 
which can be given to them — and especially for 
the older students in our high schools. For it is no 
exaggeration to say that the spirit of democracy 
has. found no higher and nobler expression than it has 
in the career and the character of Abrahan Lincoln. 
He stands forth — a man of lowly origin, of narrow 
opportunities, of slender material resources, — aye, 
of actual indigence for most of his life — as our 
greatest exemplar of the power of character. 
We are in danger — to put it mildly — of priding 
ourselves too much on our material success, and 
of going too eagerly in quest of it. Our annals 



xxxvi ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

are full of boasted records of beggars become Crce- 
suses, of office boys become millionnaires. These 
are comparatively vulgar successes, for they do 
not necessarily involve the higher qualities of 
character. The great spirits of the world have been 
mostly poor men, or men of small means. Lincoln's 
success, his surprising rise from the obscurity of 
backwoods life to the highest eminence which a 
citizen can reach, is an inspiring success of character 
in its highest qualities — love of truth and justice, 
of country and humanity. It has the heroic note 
in it; that worth which enables us to add Lincoln 
to the great company of heroes whom Carlyle has 
canonized in his " Heroes and Hero Worship." 
Lincoln was entirely untainted by our dangerous 
modern ambition for money. Rather was he of 
those who, as the great scientist Agassiz put it, have 
no time for that trivial aim. Lincoln's heart was set 
on other things. What those were, these writings of 
his should demonstrate. It is because we need more 
of them in our growing youth, more of the disinterest- 
edness and devotion, the simplicity, the public spirit, 
the modest unselfishness, the uprightness and ideal- 
ism which they reflect, that it is desirable, — yea 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXXVU 

imperative, — that our young men and women should 
become intimately familiar with the life and work, 
the personality and spirit, of Abraham Lincoln. 

Biographical Note 

The best introduction to the life of Lincoln is the 
brief autobiography which he wrote in June, 1860, 
at the request of a friend for use in preparing a cam- 
paign biography. This gives us a compact, bird's 
eye view of his career as Lincoln himself saw it. 
This will be found in the "Complete Works of 
Abraham Lincoln," compiled and edited by his 
biographers, John G. Nicolay and John Hay (2 vols., 
Century Company) . Their standard Life of Lincoln 
in ten volumes (same publishers) is the authoritative 
source for the smallest details of Lincoln's life and 
the history of the times in which he lived. It is an 
indispensable reference book. There is a condensa- 
tion in one volume, which may be strongly recom- 
mended. Less voluminous and more manageable 
than the ten volumes are the lives by W. H. Herndon, 
Lincoln's law partner (two vols., Putnam), and Miss 
Tarbell (two vols., the McClure Company). 



XXXVlll ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Good short lives of Lincoln are those by John 
T. Morse, Jr., in the American Statesmen Series 
(Houghton, Mifflin and Co.), Norman Hapgood (the 
Macmillan Company), Noah Brooks, in the Heroes of 
the Nations Series (G. P. Putnam's Sons), and Alonzo 
Rothschild (Houghton, Mifflin and Company). 
Among the popular lives for young people those by 
Charles Carleton Coffin and W. M. Thayer may be 
mentioned. These may be supplemented by the 
intimate account of Lincoln's life at the White 
House given in Frank B. Carpenter's "Six Months 
at the White House, or The Inner Life of Abraham 
Lincoln " (Houghton, Mifflin and Company). 

The essays by James Russell Lowell and Carl 
Schurz and the commemorative address by Emerson 
should certainly be read; as well as the poems by 
Stedman, Bryant, Holmes, Stoddard, and Gilder, 
supplementing Lowell's noble lines in his Commem- 
oration Ode. 

A good history of the United States should be 
available for references in following the allusions to 
the events of the Civil War contained in Lincoln's 
writings. 



LINCOLN'S 

SPEECHES, INAUGURALS, 

AND LETTERS 



I 

THE CLOSING PARAGRAPHS OF AN ADDRESS TO 
THE PEOPLE OF SANGAMON COUNTY, WHEN 
LINCOLN WAS FOR THE FIRST TIME A CAN- 
DIDATE FOR THE OFFICE OF REPRESENTA- 
TIVE TO THE LEGISLATURE OF ILLINOIS. IT 
IS DATED NEW SALEM, MARCH 9, 1832. 

But, fellow-citizens, I shall conclude. Consid- 
ering the great degree of modesty which should 
always attend youth, it is probable I have already 
been more presuming than becomes me. How- 
ever, upon the subjects of which I have treated, 1 5 
have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong 
in regard to any or all of them; but, holding it 
a sound maxim that it is better only to be some- 
times right than at all times wrong, so soon as I 
discover my opinions to be erroneous I shall be 10 
ready to renounce them. 

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambi- 
tion. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for 
b 1 



2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

one, that I have no other so great as that of be- 
ing truly esteemed of my fellow-men by render- 
ing myself worthy of their esteem. How far I 
shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet 
5 to be developed. I am young and unknown to 
many of you; I was born and have ever remained 
in the most humble walks of life. I have no 
wealthy or popular relations or friends to recom- 
mend me. My case is thrown exclusively upon 

i o the independent voters of the county, and if 
elected, they will have conferred a favor upon me 
for which I shall be unremitting in my labors to 
compensate. But if the good people in their 
wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the back- 

15 ground, I have been too familiar with disappoint- 
ments to be very much chagrined. 

Your friend and fellow-citizen, 

A. Lincoln. 



II 

FROM AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN'S 
LYCEUM OF SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, ON THE 
PERPETUATION OF OUR POLITICAL INSTITU- 
TIONS, JANUARY 27, 1837. 

In the great journal of things happening under the 
sun, we, the American people, find our account run- 
ning under date of the nineteenth century of the 
Christian era. We find ourselves in the peaceful 
possession of the fairest portion of the earth as 
regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salu- 
brit} r of climate. We find ourselves under the 
government of a system of political institutions 
conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and 
religious liberty than any of which the history of 
former times tells us. We, when mounting the 
stage of existence, found ourselves the legal in- 
heritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled 
not in the acquirement or establishment of them; 
they are a legacy bequeathed us by a once hardy, 
brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and de- 
parted, race of ancestors. Theirs was the task 

3 



4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

(and nobly they performed it) to possess them- 
selves, and through themselves us, of this goodly 
land, and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys a 
political edifice of liberty and equal rights ; 'tis 

5 ours only to transmit these — the former unpro- 
faned by the foot of an invader, the latter unde- 
cayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpa- 
tion — to the latest generation that fate shall 
permit the world to know. This task gratitude to 

:oour fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, 
and love for our species in general, all imperatively 
require us faithfully to perform. 

How then shall we perform it ? At what point 
shall we expect the approach of danger ? By what 

i 5 means shall we fortify against it ? Shall we expect 
some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean 
and crush us at a blow ? Never ! All the armies 
of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the 
treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their 

20 military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, 
could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or 
make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thou- 
sand years. 

At what point then is the approach of danger to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 5 

be expected ? I answer, If it ever reach us it must 
spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. 
If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its 
author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we 
must live through all time, or die by suicide. 5 

I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is 
even now something of ill omen amongst us. I mean 
the increasing disregard for law which pervades the 
country — the growing disposition to substitute the 
wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judg- ic 
ment of courts, and the worse than savage mobs for 
the executive ministers of justice. This disposition 
is awfully fearful in any community; and that it now 
exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, 
it v/ould be a violation of truth and an insult to our if 
intelligence to deny. Accounts of outrages com- 
mitted by mobs form the everyday news of the times. 
They have pervaded the country from New England 
to Louisiana. . . . 

It would be tedious as well as useless to recount 2c 
the horrors of all of them. Those happening in the 
State of Mississippi and at St. Louis are perhaps 
the most dangerous examples and revolting to 
humanity. . . . 



6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Turn then to that horror-striking scene at St. Louis. 
A single victim only was sacrificed there. This 
story is very short and perhaps the most highly 
tragic of anything of its length that has ever been 
5 witnessed in real life. A mulatto man by the name 
of Mcintosh was seized in the street, dragged to the 
suburbs of the city, chained to a tree, and actually 
burned to death; and all within a single hour from 
the time he had been a freeman attending to his own 

to business and at peace with the world. 

Such are the effects of mob law, and such are the 
scenes becoming more and more frequent in this land 
so lately famed for love of law and order, and the 
stories of which have even now grown too familiar to 

is attract anything more than an idle remark. . . . 

I know the American people are much attached to 

their government; I know they would suffer much 

for its sake;. I know they would endure evils long 

and patiently before they would ever think of ex- 

20 changing it for another, — yet, notwithstanding all 
this, if the laws be continually despised and disre- 
garded, if their rights to be secure in their persons and 
property are held by no better tenure than the ca- 
price of a mob, the alienation of their affections from 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 7 

the government is the natural consequence; and to 
that, sooner or later, it must come. 

Here then is one point at which danger may be ex- 
pected. 

The question recurs, " How shall we fortify against 5 
it?" The answer is simple. Let every American, 
every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his poster- 
ity, swear by the blood of the Revolution never to 
violate in the least particular the laws of the country, 
and never to tolerate their violation by others. As 10 
the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the 
Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the 
Constitution and laws let every American pledge his 
life, his property, and his sacred honor — let every 
man remember that to violate the law is to trample 15 
on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of 
his own and his children's liberty. Let reverence 
for the laws be breathed by every American mother 
to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap ; let it be 
taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let 20 
it be written in primers, spelling-books, and in 
almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, pro- 
claimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of 
justice. And, in short, let it become the political 



8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, 
the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all 
sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, sacrifice 
unceasingly upon its altars. 
5 While ever a state of feeling such as this shall 
universally or even very generally prevail throughout 
the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless 
every attempt, to subvert our national freedom. . . . 
I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revo- 

10 lution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten, but 
that, like everything else, they must fade upon the 
memory of the world, and grow more and more dim 
by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will 
be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall 

15 be read; but even granting that they will, their 
influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. 
Even then they cannot be so universally known nor 
so vividly felt as they were by the generation just 
gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly 

20 every adult male had been a participator in some 
of its scenes. The consequence was that of those 
scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or 
a brother, a living history was to be found in every 
family — a history bearing the indubitable testimo- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 9 

nies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, 
in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the 
very scenes related — a history, too, that could be 
read and understood alike by all, the wise and the 
ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. But those 5 
histories are gone. They can be read no more for- 
ever. They were a fortress of strength; but what 
invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of 
time has done — the levelling of its walls. They are 
£«tne. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all- 10 
restless hurricane has swept over them, and left 
only here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled of its 
verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and un- 
shaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, 
and to combat with its mutilated limbs more ruder 15 
storms, then to sink and be no more. 

They were pillars of the temple of liberty ; and now 
that they have crumbled away that temple must fall 
unless we, their descendants, supply their places with 
other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober 20 
reason. Passion has helped us, but can do so no 
more. It will in the future be our enemy. Reason — 
cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason — must fur- 
nish all the materials for our future support and 



10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

defence. Let those materials be moulded into general 
intelligence, sound morality, and, in particular, a 
reverence for the Constitution and laws; and that 
we improved to the last, that we remained free to 

S the last, that we revered his name to the last, that 
during his long sleep we permitted no hostile foot 
to pass over or desecrate his resting-place, shall be 
that which to learn the last trump shall awaken 
our Washington. 

o Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as 
the rock of its basis, and, as truly as has been said 
of the only greater institution, "the gates of hell 
shall not prevail against it." 



Ill 

THE CONCLUSION OF LINCOLN'S SPEECH CLOSING 
A POLITICAL DEBATE BETWEEN LINCOLN AND 
OTHERS AGAINST STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS AND 
OTHERS (AMONG THEM MR. LAMBORN), HELD 
IN THE SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURqp OF 
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, IN DECEMBER, 1839. 

v Mr. Lamborn insists that the difference between 
trie Van Buren party and the Whigs is, that 
although the former sometimes err in practice, 
they are always correct in principle, whereas the 
latter are wrong in principle; and the better to 5 
impress this proposition, he uses a figurative ex- 
pression in these words: " The Democrats are 
vulnerable in the heel, but they are sound in the 
heart and in the head." The first branch of the 
figure — that is, that the Democrats are vulner- ic 
able in the heel — I admit is not merely figuratively 
but literally true. Who that looks but for a mo- 
ment at their Swartwouts, their Prices, their Har- 
ringtons, and their hundreds of others, scampering 
away with the public money to Texas, to Europe, 15 

11 



12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and to every spot of the earth where a villain 
may hope to find refuge from justice, can at all 
doubt that they are most distressingly affected in 
their heels with a species of running fever ? It 
5 seems that this malady of their heels operates 
on the sound-headed and honest-hearted crea- 
tures very much like the cork leg in the song 
did on its owner, which, when he had once got 
started on it, the more he tried to stop it, the 

10 more it would run away. At the hazard of wear- 
ing this point theadbare, I will relate an anec- 
dote which seems to be too strikingly in point to 
be omitted. A witty Irish soldier, who was always 
boasting of his bravery when no danger was near, 

15 but who invariably retreated without orders at the 
first charge of the engagement, being asked by 
his captain why he did so, replied, " Captain, I have 
as brave a heart as Julius Caesar ever had; but 
somehow or other, whenever danger approaches, 

20 my cowardly legs will run away with it." So it is 
with Mr. Lamborn's party. They take the public 
money into their hands for the most laudable 
purpose that wise heads and honest hearts can 
dictate, but before they can possibly get it out again 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 13 

their rascally vulnerable heels will run away with 
them. . . . 

Mr. Lamborn refers to the late elections in the 
States, and, from their results, confidently predicts 
every State in the Union will vote for Mr. Van 5 
Buren at the next presidential election. Address 
that argument to cowards and knaves! With the 
free and the brave it will effect nothing. It may be 
true: if it must, let it. Many free countries have 
lo^t their liberties, and ours may lose hers; but if she 10 
shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was the 
last to desert, but that I never deserted her. I 
know that the great volcano at Washington, aroused 
and directed by the evil spirit that reigns there, 
is belching forth the lava of political corruption 15 
in a current broad and deep, which is sweeping 
with frightful velocity over the whole length and 
breadth of the land, bidding fair to leave unscathed 
no green spot or living thing, while on its bosom are 
riding, like demons on the wave of hell,' the imps of 20 
that evil spirit, and fiendishly taunting all those 
who dare to resist its destroying course with the 
hopelessness of their efforts; and, knowing this, I 
cannot deny that all may be swept away. Broken 



14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

by it, I too may be ; bow to it, I never will. The prob- 
ability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to 
deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be 
just. It shall not deter me. If ever I feel the soul 

5 within me elevate and expand to those dimensions 
not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is 
when I contemplate the cause of my country 
deserted by all the world beside, and I standing 
up, boldly, alone, hurling defiance at her victorious 

10 oppressors. Here, without contemplating conse- 
quences, before Heaven and in the face of the world, 
I swear eternal fealty to the just cause, as I deem it, 
of the land of my life, my liberty, and my love. And 
who that thinks with me will not fearlessly adopt the 

15 oath that I take ? Let none falter who thinks he is 
right, and we may succeed. But if, after all, we 
shall fail, be it so; we still shall have the proud 
consolation of saying to our consciences and to the 
departed shade of our country's freedom, that the 

20 cause approved of our judgment and adored of our 
hearts, in disaster, in chains, in torture, in death, 
we never faltered in defending. 



IV 



FROM A SPEECH IN REPLY TO SENATOR 
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, AT PEORIA, ILLINOIS 
OCTOBER 16, 1854. ' 

This declared indifference, but, as I must think, 
real, covert zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot 
bu^hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injus- 
tice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our 
republican example of its just influence in the world, 5 
enables the enemies of free institutions with plausi- 
bility to taunt us as hypocrites, causes the real friends 
of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially 
because it forces so many good men amongst our- 
selves into an open war with the very fundamental 10 
principles of civil liberty, criticising the Declaration 
of Independence, and insisting that there is no right 
principle of action but self-interest. . . 

Equal justice to the South, it is said, requires us to 
consent to the extension of slavery to new countries. 15 
That is to say, that inasmuch as you do not object 
to my taking my hog to Nebraska, therefore I must 



16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

not object to your taking your slave. Now, I admit 
that this is perfectly logical, if there is no difference 
between hogs and slaves. But while you thus require 
me to deny the humanity of the negro, I wish to ask 

5 whether you of the South, yourselves, have ever 
been willing to do as much? It is kindly pro- 
vided that of all those who come into the world, 
only a small percentage are natural tyrants. That 
percentage is no larger in the slave States than 

-in the free. The great majority, South as well 
as North, have human sympathies, of which they 
can no more divest themselves than the}^ can of 
their sensibility to physical pain. These sympathies 
in the bosoms of the Southern people manifest in 

5 many ways their sense of the wrong of slavery, and 
their consciousness that after all, there is humanity 
in the negro. If they deny this, let me address 
them a few plain questions. In 1820 you joined the 
North almost unanimously in declaring the African 

!c slave-trade piracy, and in annexing to it the punish- 
ment of death. Why did you do this ? If you did 
not feel that it was wrong, why did you join in pro- 
viding that men should be hung for it ? The prac- 
tice was no more than bringing wild negroes from 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 17 

Africa to such as would buy them. But you never 
thought of hanging men for catching and selling 
wild horses, wild buffaloes, or wild bears. 

Again, 3^ou have among you a sneaking indi- 
vidual of the class of native tyrants known as the 5 
slave-dealer. He watches your necessities, and 
crawls up to buy your slave at a speculating price. 
If you cannot help it, you sell to him; but if you 
canNielp it, you drive him from your door. You 
despise him utterly; you do not recognize him i< 
as a friend, or even as an honest man. Your 
children must not play with his; they may rollic 
freely with the little negroes, but not with the 
slave-dealer's children. If you are obliged to deal 
with him, you try to get through the job with- 1 
out so much as touching him. It is common with 
you to join hands with the men you meet; but 
with the slave-dealer you avoid the ceremony, — 
instinctively shrinking from the snaky contact. 
If he grows rich and retires from business, you 2 
still remember him, and still keep up the ban of non- 
intercourse upon him and his family. Now, why is 
this ? You do not so treat the man who deals in 
corn, cotton, or tobacco. 



18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

And yet again. There are in the United States 
and Territories, including the District of Columbia, 
over four hundred and thirty thousand free blacks. 
At five hundred dollars per head they are worth 

s over two hundred millions of dollars. How comes 
this vast amount of property to be running about 
without owners ? We do not see free horses or free 
cattle running at large. How is this? All these 
free blacks are the descendants of slaves, or 

tohave been slaves themselves; and they would be 
slaves now but for something which has operated 
on their white owners, inducing them at vast pecun- 
iary sacrifice to liberate them. What is that some- 
thing ? Is there any mistaking it ? In all these 

[5 cases it is your sense of justice and human sympathy 
continually telling you that the poor negro has some 
natural right to himself, — that those who deny it 
and make mere merchandise of him deserve kick- 
ings, contempt, and death. . . . 

20 But one great argument in support of the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise is still to come. That 
argument is " the sacred right of self-government." 
. . . Some poet has said, — 

" Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 19 

At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of 
this quotation, I meet that argument, — I rush in, — 
I take that bull by the horns. . . . My faith in 
the proposition that each man should do precisely as 
he pleases with all which is exclusively his own, lies 5 
at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me. 
I extend the principle to communities of men as well 
as, to individuals. I so extend it because it is politi- 
caHy wise as well as naturally just, — politically wise 
in saving us from broils about matters which do not 10 
concern us. Here, or at Washington, I would not 
trouble myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or 
the cranberry laws of Indiana. The doctrine of self- 
government is right, — absolutely and eternally right ; 
but it has no just application as here attempted. 15 
Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has 
any application here depends upon whether a negro 
is not or is a man. If he is not a man, in that case 
he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, 
do j ust what he pleases with him. But if the negro is 20 
a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of 
self-government to say that he, too, shall not govern 
himself? When the white man governs himself, 
that is self-government; but when he governs him- 



20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

self and also governs another man, that is more than 
self-government, — that is despotism. If the negro 
is a man, then my ancient faith teaches me that "all 
men are created equal," and that there can be no 

5 moral right in connection with one man's making a 
slave of another. 

Judge Douglas frequently and with bitter irony 
and sarcasm paraphrases our argument by saying, 
"The white people of Nebraska are good enough to 

10 govern themselves, but they are not good enough to 
govern a few miserable negroes!" 

Well, I doubt not that the people of Nebraska are 
and will continue to be as good as the average of 
people elsewhere. I do not say the contrary. What 

15 1 do say is that no man is good enough to govern an- 
other man without that other's consent. I say this 
is the leading principle, — the sheet-anchor of Amer- 
ican republicanism. . . . 

But Nebraska is urged as a great Union-saving 

20 measure. Well, I too go for saving the Union. 
Much as I hate slavery, I would consent to the ex- 
tension of it rather than see the Union dissolved, 
just as I would consent to any great evil to avoid a 
greater one. But when I go to Union-saving, I 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 21 

must believe, at least, that the means I employ have 
some adaptation to the end. To my mind, Nebraska 
has no such adaptation. 

" It hath no relish of salvation in it." 

It is an aggravation, rather, of the only one things 
which ever endangers the Union. When it came 
upon us, all was peace and quiet. The nation was 
looking to the forming of new bonds of union, and 
a long course of peace and prosperity seemed to 
lie before us. In the whole range of possibility, « 
there scarcely appears to me to have been anything 
out of which the slavery agitation could have been 
revived, except the very project of repealing the 
Missouri Compromise. Every inch of territory we 
owned already had a definite settlement of the i« 
slavery question, by which all parties were pledged 
to abide. Indeed, there was no uninhabited country 
on the continent which we could acquire, if we except 
some extreme northern regions which are wholly out 
of the question. 2 c 

In this state of affairs the Genius of Discord himself 
could scarcely have invented a way of again setting 
us by the ears but by turning back and destroying 



22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the peace measures of the past. The counsels of that 
Genius seem to have prevailed. The Missouri Com- 
promise was repealed; and here we are in the midst 
of a new slavery agitation, such, I think, as we have 
5 never seen before. Who is responsible for this ? Is 
it those who resist the measure, or those who cause- 
lessly brought it forward and pressed it through, hav- 
ing reason to know, and in fact knowing, it must and 
would be resisted ? It could not but be expected 

10 by its author that it would be looked upon as a meas- 
ure for the extension of slavery, aggravated by a 
gross breach of faith. 

Argue as you will and long as you will, this is the 
naked front and aspect of the measure. And in this 

is aspect it could not but produce agitation. Slavery is 
founded in the selfishness of man's nature — opposi- 
tion to it in his love of justice. These principles are 
an eternal antagonism, and when brought into colli- 
sion so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, 

20 shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly 
follow. Repeal the Missouri Compromise, repeal 
all compromises, repeal the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal 
human nature. It still will be the abundance of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 23 

man's heart that slavery extension is wrong, and out 
of the abundance of his heart his mouth will continue 
to speak. . . . 

The Missouri Compromise ought to be restored. 
For the sake of the Union, it ought to be restored. 5 
We ought to elect a House of Representatives 
which will vote its restoration. If by any means 
we omit to do this, what follows ? Slavery may or 
may not be established in Nebraska. But whether 
it be or not, we shall have repudiated — discarded 10 
from the councils of the nation — the spirit of 
compromise; for who, after this, will ever trust in 
a national compromise? The spirit of mutual 
concession — that spirit which first gave us the 
Constitution, and which has thrice saved the Union 15 
— we shall have strangled and cast from us forever. 
And what shall we have in lieu of it ? The South 
flushed with triumph and tempted to excess; the 
North, betrayed as they believe, brooding on wrong 
and burning for revenge. One side will provoke, 20 
the other resent. The one will taunt, the other 
defy; one aggresses, the other retaliates. . . . 

But restore the compromise, and what then ? 
We thereby restore the national faith, the national 



24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

confidence, the national feeling of brotherhood. 
We thereby reinstate the spirit of concession and 
compromise, that spirit which has never failed us 
in past perils, and which may be safely trusted for 
5 all the future. The South ought to join in doing 
this. The peace of the nation is as dear to them as 
to us. In memories of the past and hopes of the 
future, they share as largely as we. It would be 
on their part a great act — great in its spirit, and 

10 great in its effect. It would be worth to the nation 
a hundred years' purchase of peace and prosperity. 
And what of sacrifice would they make? They 
only surrender to us what they gave us for a consid- 
eration long, long ago; what they have not now 

15 asked for, struggled or cared for; what has been 
thrust upon them, not less to their astonishment 
than to ours. . . . 

I particularly object to the new position which 
the avowed principle of this Nebraska law gives to 

20 slavery in the body politic. I object to it because 
it assumes that there can be moral right in the 
enslaving of one man by another. I object to it 
as a dangerous dalliance for a free people — a sad 
evidence that, feeling prosperity, we forget right; 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 25 

that liberty, as a principle, we have ceased to revere. 
I object to it because the fathers of the republic 
eschewed and rejected it. The argument of "ne- 
cessity" was the only argument they ever admitted 
in favor of slavery; and so far, and so far only, as 5 
it carried them did they ever go. They found 
the institution existing among us, which they 
could hpt help, and they cast blame upon the British 
king for having permitted its introduction. Before 
the Constitution they prohibited its introduction 10 
into the Northwestern Territory, the only country 
we owned then free from it. At the framing and 
adoption of the Constitution, they forbore to so 
much as mention the word " slave" or "slavery" in 
the whole instrument. In the provision for the 15 
recovery of fugitives, the slave is spoken of as a 
"person held to serve or labor." In that prohibit- 
ing the abolition of the African slave-trade for 
twenty years, that trade is spoken of as "the migra- 
tion or importation of such persons as any of the 20 
States now existing shall think proper to admit," etc. 
These are the only provisions alluding to slavery. 
Thus the thing is hid away in the Constitution, 
just as an afflicted man hides away a wen or cancer 



26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to 
death, — with the promise, nevertheless, that the 
cutting may begin at a certain time. Less than 
this our fathers could not do, and more they would 

5 not do. Necessity drove them so far, and farther 
they would not go. But this is not all. The 
earliest Congress under the Constitution took the 
same view of slavery. They hedged and hemmed 
it in to the narrowest limits of necessity. . . . 

10 But now it is to be transformed into a " sacred 
right." Nebraska brings it forth, places it on the 
highroad to extension and perpetuity, and with a 
pat on its back says to it, " Go, and God speed you." 
Henceforth it is to be the chief jewel of the nation 

15 — the very figurehead of the ship of state. Little 
by little, but steadily as man's march to the grave, 
we have been giving up the old for the new faith. 
Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that 
all men are created equal; but now from that 

20 beginning we have run down to the other declara- 
tion, that for some men to enslave others is a 
" sacred sight of self-government." These prin- 
ciples cannot stand together. They are as oppo- 
site as God and Mammon; and who ever holds to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 27 

the one must despise the other. When Pettit, 
in connection with his support of the Nebraska bill, 
called the Declaration of Independence "a self- 
evident lie," he only did what consistency and 
candor require all other Nebraska men to do. 5 
Of the forty-odd Nebraska senators who sat present 
and heard him, no one rebuked him. Nor am I 
apprised that any Nebraska newspaper, or any 
Nebraska orator, in the whole nation has ever re- 
buked him. If this had been said among Marion's 10 
men, Southerners though they were, what would 
have become of the man who said it ? If this had 
been said to the men who captured Andre, the man 
who said it would probably have been hung sooner 
than Andre was. If it had been said in old Inde- 15 
pendence Hall seventy-eight years ago, the very 
doorkeeper would have throttled the man and 
thrust him into the street. Let no one be deceived. 
The spirit of seventy-six and the spirit of Nebraska 
are utter antagonisms; and the former is being 20 
rapidly displaced by the latter. 

Fellow-countrymen, Americans, South as well 
as North, shall we make no effort to arrest this ? 
Already the liberal party throughout the world 



28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

express the apprehension "that the one retro- 
grade institution in America is undermining the 
principles of progress, and fatally violating the 
noblest political system the world ever saw." This 

5 is not the taunt of enemies, but the warning of 
friends. Is it quite safe to disregard it — to de- 
spise it ? Is there no danger to liberty itself in dis- 
carding the earliest practice and first precept of 
our ancient faith ? In our greedy chase to make 

10 profit of the negro, let us beware lest we " cancel and 
tear in pieces " even the white man's charter of 
freedom. 

Our republican robe is soiled and trailed in the 
dust. Let us repurify it. Let us turn and wash 

15 it white in the spirit, if not the blood, of the 
Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims of 
"moral right" back upon its existing legal rights 
and its arguments of "necessity." Let us return 
it to the position our fathers gave it, and there let 

20 it rest in peace. Let us readopt the Declaration of 
Independence, and with it the practices and policy 
which harmonize with it. Let North and South — 
let all Americans — let all lovers of liberty every- 
where join in the great and good work. If we do 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 29 

this, we shall not only have saved the Union, but 
we shall have so saved it as to make and to keep it 
forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so 
saved it that the succeeding millions of free 
happy people, the world over, shall rise up and call 5 
us blessed to the latest generations. . . . 



FROM A LETTER TO JOSHUA F. SPEED, DATED 
AUGUST 24, 1855. 

You suggest that in political action now, you and 
I would differ. I suppose we would; not quite 
so much, however, as you may think. You know 
I dislike slavery, and you fully admit the abstract 

5 wrong of it. So far there is no cause of difference. 
But you say that sooner than yield your legal 
right to the slave, especially at the bidding of those 
who are not themselves interested, you would see 
the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any 

ioone is bidding you yield that right; very certainly 
I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. 
I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations 
under the Constitution in regard to your slaves. 
I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted 

15 down and caught and carried back to their stripes 
and unrequited toil; but I bite my lips and keep 
quiet. In 1841, you and I had together a tedious 
low- water trip on a steamboat, from Louisville to 
St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, 

30 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 31 

that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, 
there were on board ten or a dozen slaves shackled 
together with irons. That sight was a continued 
torment to me, and I see something like it every 
time I touch the Ohio or any other slave border. 5 
It is not fair for you to assume that I have no 
interest in a thing which has, and continually exer- 
cises, the power of making me miserable. You 
ought rather to appreciate how much the great 
body of the Northern people do crucify their feel- 10 
ings in order to maintain their loyalty to the Con- 
stitution and the Union. I do oppose the exten- 
sion of slavery, because my judgment and feeling so 
prompt me, and I am under no obligations to the 
contrary. If for this you and I must differ, differ 15 
we must. You say if you were President, you 
would send an army and hang the leaders of the 
Missouri outrages upon the Kansas elections; 
still, if Kansas fairly votes herself a slave State she 
must be admitted, or the Union must be dissolved. 20 
But how if she votes herself a slave State unfairly; 
that is, by the very means for which you say you 
would hang men ? Must she still be admitted, 
or the Union dissolved ? That will be the phase of 



32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the question when it first becomes a practical one. 
In your assumption that there may be a fair decision 
of the slavery question in Kansas, I plainly see 
that you and I would differ about the Nebraska 

5 law. I look upon that enactment, not as a law, 
but as a violence from the beginning. It was con- 
ceived in violence, is maintained in violence, and is 
being executed in violence. I say it was con- 
ceived in violence, because the destruction of the 

io Missouri Compromise, under the circumstances, 
was nothing less than violence. It was passed in 
violence, because it could not have passed at all 
but for the votes of many members in violence 
of the known will of their constituents. It is main- 

istained in violence, because the elections since 
clearly demand its repeal, and the demand is openly 
disregarded. . . . 

That Kansas will form a slave constitution, 
and with it ask to be admitted into the Union, I 

20 take to be already a settled question, and so settled 
by the very means you so pointedly condemn. 
By every principle of law ever held by any court 
North or South, every negro taken to Kansas is 
free; yet in utter disregard of this — in the spirit 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 33 

of violence merely — that beautiful Legislature 
gravely passes a law to hang any man who shall 
venture to inform a negro of his legal rights. This 
is the subject and real object of the law. If, like 
Hainan, they should hang upon the gallows of their 5 
own building, I shall not be among the mourners 
for their fate. In my humble sphere, I shall advo- 
cate the restoration of the Missouri Compromise so 
long as Kansas remains a Territory; and when, by 
all these foul means, it seeks to come into the 10 
Union as a slave State, I shall oppose it. . . . 

You say that if Kansas fairly votes herself a 
free State, as a Christian you will rejoice at it. 
All decent slaveholders talk that way, and I do 
not doubt their candor; but they never vote 15 
that way. Although in a private letter or con- 
versation you will express your preference that 
Kansas should be free, you would vote for no man 
for Congress who would say the same thing pub- 
licly. No such man could be elected from any 20 
district in a slave State. You think Stringfellow 
and company ought to be hung. . . . The slave- 
breeders and slave-traders are a small, odious, and 
detested class among you; and yet in politics they 



34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

dictate the course of all of you, and are as com- 
pletely your masters as you are the master of your 
own negroes. You inquire where I now stand. 
That is a disputed point. I think I am a Whig; 

s but others say there are no Whigs, and that I am 
an Abolitionist. When I was at Washington, I 
voted for the Wilmot Proviso as good as forty times; 
and I never heard of any one attempting to unwhig 
me for that. I now do more than oppose the ex- 

10 tension of slavery. I am not a Know-nothing; 
that is certain. How could I be ? How can any 
one who abhors the oppression of negroes be in 
favor of degrading classes of white people ? Our 
progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty 

15 rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that 
all men are created equal. We now practically read 
it, all men are created equal except negroes. When 
the Know-nothings get control it will read, all 
men are created equal except negroes and foreigners 

20 and Catholics. When it comes to this, I shall 
prefer emigrating to some country where they 
make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, 
for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, 
and without the base alloy of hypocrisy. 



VI 

FROM A SPEECH DISCUSSING THE DECISION IN 
THE DRED SCOTT CASE, AT SPRINGFIELD, 
ILLINOIS, 26 JUNE, 1857. 

And now as to the Dred Scott decision. That 
decision declares two propositions, — first, that a 
negro cannot sue in the United States courts; and, 
secondly, that Congress cannot prohibit slavery in 
the Territories. It was made by a divided court — 5 
dividing differently on the different points. Judge 
Douglas does not discuss the merits of the decision, 
and in that respect I shall follow his example. . . . 

He denounces all who question the correct- 
ness of that decision, as offering violent resistance 10 
to it. But who resists it ? Who has, in spite of 
the decision, declared Dred Scott free, and re- 
sisted the authority of his master over him ? . . . 

We believe as much as Judge Douglas (per- 
haps more) in obedience to and respect for the 15 
judicial department of government. We think 
its decisions on constitutional questions, when 
fully settled, should control not only the partic- 

35 



36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ular cases decided, but the general policy of the 
country, subject to be disturbed only by amend- 
ments of the Constitution, as provided in that 
instrument itself. More than this would be revo- 
s lution. But we think the Dred Scott decision is 
erroneous. We know the court that made it has 
often overruled its own decisions, and we shall 
do what we can to have it overrule this. We offer 
no resistance to it. 

10 If this important decision had been made by 
the unanimous concurrence of the judges, and 
without any apparent partisan bias, and in ac- 
cordance with legal public expectation, and with 
the steady practice of the departments through- 

15 out our history, and had been in no part based 
on assumed historical facts, which are not really 
true; or if wanting in some of these, it had been 
before the court more than once, and had there 
been affirmed and reaffirmed through a course of 

20 years, — it then might be, perhaps would be 
factious, nay, even revolutionary, not to acquiesce 
in it as a precedent. 

But when, as is true, we find it wanting in all 
these claims to the public confidence, it is not re- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 37 

sistance, it is not factiousness, it is not even disre- 
spectful to treat it as not having yet quite estab- 
lished a settled doctrine for the country. . . . 

I have said, in substance, that the Dred Scott 
decision was in part based on assumed historical 5 
facts which were not really true, and I ought not 
to leave the subject without giving some reasons 
for saying this; I therefore give an instance or 
two, which I think fully sustain me. Chief Jus- 
tice Taney, in delivering the opinion of the major- 10 
ity of the court, insists at great length that negroes 
were no part of the people who made, or for whom 
was made the Declaration of Independence, or the 
Constitution of the United States. 

On the contrary, Judge Curtis, in his dissent- 15 
ing opinion, shows that in five of the then thir- 
teen States — to wit, New Hampshire, Massachu- 
setts, New York, New Jersey, and North Caro- 
lina — free negroes were voters, and in proportion 
to their numbers had the same part in making 20 
the Constitution that the white people had. He 
shows this with so much particularity as to leave 
no doubt of its truth; and as a sort of conclusion 
on that point, holds the following language : — 



38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

"The Constitution was ordained and estab- 
lished by the people of the United States, through 
the action, in each State, of those persons who 
were qualified by its laws to act thereon in behalf 
of themselves and all other citizens of the State. 
In some of the States, as we have seen, colored 
persons were among those qualified by law to act 
on the subject. These colored persons were not 
only included in the body of 'the people of the 
United States' by whom the Constitution was or- 
dained and established ; but in at least five of the 
States they had the power to act, and doubtless 
did act, by their suffrages, upon the question of 
its adoption." 

Again, Chief Justice Taney says: — 

"It is difficult at this day to realize the state 
of public opinion, in relation to that unfortunate 
race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlight- 
ened portions of the world at the time of the Dec- 
laration of Independence, and when the Consti- 
tution of the United States was framed and 
adopted." 

And again, after quoting from the Declaration, 
he says : — 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 39 

"The general words above quoted would seem 
to include the whole human family, and if they 
were used in a similar instrument at this day, 
would be so understood." 
In these the Chief Justice does not directly assert 5 
but plainly assumes, as a fact, that the public 
estimate of the black man is more favorable now 
than it was in the days of the Revolution. This 
assumption is a mistake. In some trifling par- 
ticulars the condition of that race has been amelio- 10 
rated; but as a whole, in this country, the change 
between then and now is decidedly the other way; 
and their ultimate destiny has never appeared so 
hopeless as in the last three or four years. In two 
of the five States — New Jersey and North Caro-15 
Una — that then gave the free negro the right of 
voting, the right has since been taken away, and 
in a third — New York — it has been greatly 
abridged; while it has not been extended, so far as 
I know, to a single additional State, though the num- 20 
ber of the States has more than doubled. In those 
days, as I understand, masters could, at their 
own pleasure, emancipate their slaves; but since 
then such legal restraints have been made upon 



40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

emancipation as to amount almost to prohibi- 
tion. In those days legislatures held the unques- 
tioned power to abolish slavery in their respective 
States, but now it is becoming quite fashionable 

5 for State constitutions to withhold that power 
from the legislatures. In those days, by common 
consent, the spread of the black man's bondage 
to the new countries was prohibited, but now 
Congress decides that it will not continue the pro- 

iohibition, and the Supreme Court decides that it 
could not if it would. In those days our Declara- 
tion of Independence was held sacred by all, and 
thought to include all; but now, to aid in making 
the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, 

is it is assailed and sneered at and construed, and 
hawked at and torn, till, if its framers could rise 
from their graves, they could not at all recognize 
it. All the powers of earth seem rapidly combin- 
ing against him. Mammon is after him, ambition 

20 follows, philosophy follows, and the theology 
of the day is fast joining the cry. They have 
him in his prison house; they have searched his 
person, and left no prying instrument with him. 
One after another they have closed the heavy iron 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 41 

doors upon him; and now they have him, as it 
were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, 
which can never be unlocked without the concurrence 
of every key — the keys in the hands of a hundred 
different men, and they scattered to a hundred 5 
different and distant places; and they stand mus- 
ing as to what invention, in all the dominions of 
mind and matter, can be produced to make the 
impossibility of his escape more complete than it is. 

It is grossly incorrect to say or assume that the 10 
public estimate of the negro is more favorable 
now than it was at the origin of the government. 

Three years and a half ago, Judge Douglas 
brought forward his famous Nebraska bill. The 
country was at once in a blaze. He scorned all 15 
opposition, and carried it through Congress. Since 
then he has seen himself superseded in a presi- 
dential nomination by one indorsing the general 
doctrine of his measure, but at the same time 
standing clear of the odium of its untimely agita- 20 
tion and its gross breach of national faith; and 
he has seen that successful rival constitutionally 
elected, not by the strength of friends, but by the 
division of adversaries, being in a popular minority 



42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

of nearly four hundred thousand votes. He has 
seen his chief aids in his own State, Shields and 
Richardson, politically speaking, successively tried, 
convicted, and executed for an offence not their 
5 own, but his. And now he sees his own case stand- 
ing next on the docket for trial. 

There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly 
all white people at the idea of an indiscriminate 
amalgamation of the white and black races; and 

10 Judge Douglas evidently is basing his chief hope 
upon the chances of his being able to appropriate 
the benefit of this disgust to himself. If he can, 
by much drumming and repeating, fasten the 
odium of that idea upon his adversaries, he thinks 

15 he can struggle through the storm. He therefore 
clings to this hope, as a drowning man to the last 
plank. He makes an occasion for lugging it in 
from the opposition to the Dred Scott decision. 
He finds the Republicans insisting that the Decla- 

20 ration of Independence includes all men, black as 
well as white, and forthwith he boldly denies that 
it includes negroes at all, and proceeds to argue 
gravely that all who contend it does, do so only 
because they want to vote, and eat, and sleep, and 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 48 

marry with negroes! He will have it that they 
cannot be consistent else. Now I protest against 
the counterfeit logic which concludes that, because 
I do not want a black woman for a slave I must 
necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have 5 
her for either. I can just leave her alone. In some 
respects she certainly is not my equal; but in her 
natural right to eat bread she earns with her own 
hands without asking leave of any one else, she 
is my equal, and the equal of all others. 10 

Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred 
Scott case, admits that the language of the Dec- 
laration is broad enough to include the whole 
human family, but he and Judge Douglas argue 
that the authors of that instrument did not intend 15 
to include negroes, by the fact they did not at 
once actually place them on an equality with the 
whites. Now this grave argument comes to just 
nothing at all, by the other fact that they did not 
at once, or ever afterward, actually place all white 20 
people on an equality with one another. And this 
is the staple argument of both the chief justice and 
the senator for doing this obvious violence to the 
plain, unmistakable language of the Declaration. 



44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

I think the authors of that notable instrument 
intended to include all men, but they did not 
intend to declare all men equal in all respects. 
They did not mean to say all were equal in color, 

5 size, intellect, moral developments, or social capac- 
ity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in 
what respects they did consider all men created 
equal — equal with " certain inalienable rights, 
among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 

10 happiness." This they said, and this they meant. 
They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth 
that all were then actually enjoying that equality, 
nor yet that they were about to confer it imme- 
diately upon them. In fact, they had no power 

15 to confer such a boon. They meant simply to 
declare the right, so that enforcement of it might 
follow as fast as circumstances should permit. 

They meant to set up a standard maxim for 
free society, which should be familiar to all, and 

20 revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly 
labored for, and even though never perfectly 
attained, constantly approximated, and thereby 
constantly spreading and deepening its influence 
and augmenting the happiness and value of life 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 45 

to all people of all colors everywhere. The asser- 
tion that "all men are created equal" was of no 
practical use in effecting our separation from Great 
Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration not 
for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it 5 
to be — as, thank God, it is now proving itself — 
a stumbling-block to all those who in after-times 
might seek to turn a free people back into the hate- 
ful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness 
of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant 10 
when such should reappear in this fair land and 
commence their vocation, they should find left 
for them at least one hard nut to crack. 

I have now briefly expressed my view of the 
meaning and object of that part of the Declara-15 
tion of Independence which declares that "all 
men are created equal." 

Now let us hear Judge Douglas's view of the 
same subject, as I find it in the printed report of 
his late speech. Here it is: — 20 

"No man can vindicate the character, motives, 
and conduct of the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence, except upon the hypothesis that 
they referred to the white race alone, and not to 
the African, when they declared all men to have 25 



46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

been created equal; that they were speaking of 
British subjects on this continent being equal to 
British subjects born and residing in Great Britain; 
that they were entitled to the same inalienable 

5 rights, and among them were enumerated life, 

liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Dec- 
laration was adopted for the purpose of justify- 
ing the colonists in the eyes of the civilized world, 
in withdrawing their allegiance from the British 

10 crown, and dissolving their connection with the 

mother country." 

My good friends, read that carefully over some 
leisure hour, and ponder well upon it; see what 
a mere wreck — mangled ruin — it makes of our 

15 once glorious Declaration. 

"They were speaking of British subjects on 
this continent being equal to British subjects 
born and residing in Great Britain!" Why, 
according to this, not only negroes but white peo- 

20 pie outside of Great Britain and America were 
not spoken of in that instrument. The Eng- 
lish, Irish, and Scotch, along with white Ameri- 
cans, were included, to be sure, but the French, 
Germans, and other white people of the world are 

25 all gone to pot along with the judge's inferior 
races! 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 47 

I had thought the Declaration promised some- 
thing better than the condition of British sub- 
jects; but no, it only meant that we should be 
equal to them in their own oppressed and unequal 
condition. According to that, it gave no promise 5 
that, having kicked off the king and lords of Great 
Britain, we should not at once be saddled with a 
king and lords of our own. 

I had thought the Declaration contemplated 
the progressive improvement in the condition 10 
of all men everywhere; but no, it merely "was 
adopted for the purpose of justifying the colonists 
in the eyes of the civilized world in withdrawing 
their allegiance from the British crown, and dis- 
solving their connection with the mother country." 15 
Why, that object having been effected some eighty 
years ago, the Declaration is of no practical use 
now — mere rubbish — old wadding left to rot 
on the battlefield after the victory is won. 

I understand you are preparing to celebrate 20 
the " Fourth," to-morrow week. What for ? The 
doings of that day had no reference to the present; 
and quite half of you are not even descendants of 
those who were referred to at that day. But I 



48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

suppose you will celebrate and will even go so far 
as to read the Declaration. Suppose, after you 
read it once in the old-fashioned way, you read it 
once more with Judge Douglas's version. It will 

5 then run thus: "We hold these truths to be self- 
evident, that all British subjects who were on this 
continent eighty-one years ago, were created equal 
to all British subjects born and then residing in 
Great Britain." 

o And now I appeal to all — to Democrats as 
well as others — are you really willing that the 
Declaration shall thus be frittered away ? — thus 
left no more, at most, than an interesting memorial 
of the dead past ? — thus shorn of its vitality 

sand practical value, and left without the germ or 
even the suggestion of the individual rights of 
man in it ? 



VII 



SPEECH DELIVERED BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN 
STATE CONVENTION AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLI- 
NOIS, AFTER LINCOLN'S NOMINATION FOR 
UNITED STATES SENATOR, JUNE 17, 1858; 
KNOWN AS THE "DIVIDED HOUSE" SPEECH. 

If we could first know where we are, and whither 
we are tending, we could better judge what to do, 
and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year 
since a policy was initiated with the avowed object 
and confident promise of putting an end to slavery 5 
agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that 
agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly 
augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until a 
crisis shall have been reached and passed. " A house 
divided against itself cannot stand." I believe 10 
this government cannot endure permanently half 
slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be 
dissolved, — I do not expect the house to fall; but I 
do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become 
e 49 



50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents 
of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and 
place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief 
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its 
5 advocates will push it forward till it shall become 
alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, 
North as well as South. 

Have we no tendency to the latter condition ? 
Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that 

10 now almost complete legal combination — piece of 
machinery, so to speak — compounded of the Ne- 
braska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let 
him consider not only what work the machinery is 
adapted to do, and how well adapted ; but also let 

15 him study the history of its construction, and trace, 
if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evi- 
dences of design and concert of action among its 
chief architects from the beginning. 

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded 

20 from more than half the States by State constitu- 
tions, and from most of the national territory by 
congressional prohibition. Four days later com- 
menced the struggle which ended in repealing that 
congressional prohibition. This opened all the na- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 51 

tional territory to slavery, and was the first point 
gained. 

But so far, Congress only had acted; and an in- 
dorsement by the people, real or apparent, was 
indispensable to save the point already gained and 5 
give chance for more. 

This necessity had not been overlooked, but had 
been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable 
argument of Squatter Sovereignty, otherwise called 
sacred right of self-government, which latter phrase, 10 
though expressive of the only rightful basis of any 
government, was so perverted in this attempted use 
of it, as to amount to just this : That if any one man 
choose to enslave another, no third man shall be 
allowed to object. That argument was incorporated 15 
into the Nebraska Bill itself, in the language which 
follows : " It being the true intent and meaning of this 
act, not to legislate slavery into any Territory or 
State, nor to exclude it therefrom; but to leave the 
people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate 20 
their domestic institutions in their own way, subject 
only to the Constitution of the United States." 
Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor 
of Squatter Sovereignty and sacred right of self-govern- 



52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ment. "But," said opposition members, "let us 
amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the 
people of the Territory may exclude slavery." 
"Not we," said the friends of the measure, and 

5 down they voted the amendment. 

While the Nebraska Bill was passing through 
Congress, a law case, involving the question of a 
negro's freedom, by reason of his owner having 
voluntarily taken him first into a free State and 

iothen into a Territory covered by the congressional 
prohibition, and held him as a slave for a long time 
in each, was passing through the United States Cir- 
cuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both 
Nebraska Bill and lawsuit were brought to a decision, 

15 in the same month of May, 1854. The negro's name 
was " Dred Scott," which name now designates the 
decision finally rendered in the case. Before the then 
next presidential election, the law case came to, 
and was argued, in the Supreme Court of the United 

20 States ; but the decision of it was deferred until after 
the election. Still, before the election, Senator Trum- 
bull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading- 
advocate of the Nebraska Bill to state his opinion 
whether the people of a Territory can constitutionally 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 53 

exclude slavery from their limits, and the latter 
answers: "That is a question for the Supreme 
Court." 

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, 
and the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That 5 
was the second point gained. The indorsement, 
however, fell short of a clear popular majority by 
nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, 
was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. 
The outgoing President, in his last annual message, 10 
as impressively as possible echoed back upon the 
people the weight and authority of the indorsement. 
The Supreme Court met again; did not announce 
their decision, but ordered a reargument. The 
presidential inauguration came, and still no decision 15 
of the Court; but the incoming President in his 
inaugural address fervently exhorted the people to 
abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever it 
might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision. 

The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds 20 
an early occasion to make a speech at this capitol, 
indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently 
denouncing all opposition to it. The new Presi- 
dent, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman 



54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision, 
and to express his astonishment that any different 
view had ever been entertained ! 

At length a squabble springs up between the 

5 President and the author of the Nebraska Bill, on 
the mere question of fact whether the Lecompton 
constitution was, or was not, in any just sense, 
made by the people of Kansas; and in that quarrel, 
the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote 

10 for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery 
be voted down or voted up. I do not understand his 
declaration that he cares not whether slavery be 
voted down or voted up, to be intended by him 
other than as an apt definition of the policy he 

15 would impress upon the public mind, — the principle 
for which he declares he has suffered so much, and 
is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling 
to that principle. If he has any parental feeling, 
well may he cling to it. That principle is the only 

20 shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Un- 
der the Dred Scott decision, " squatter sovereignty " 
squatted out of existence, tumbled down like tem- 
porary scaffolding; like the mould at the foundry, 
it served through one blast, and fell back into loose 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 55 

sand, — helped to carry an election, and then was 
kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with 
the Republicans against the Lecompton constitution, 
involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. 
That struggle was made on a point — the right of 5 
the people to make their own constitution — upon 
which he and the Republicans have never differed. 

The several points of the Dred Scott decision 
in connection with Senator Douglas's "care not" 
policy, constitute the piece of machinery in its 10 
present state of advancement. This was the third 
point gained. The working points of that ma- 
chinery are: — 

First. That no negro slave, imported as such 
from Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can 15 
ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense of that 
term as used in the Constitution of the United States. 
This point is made in order to deprive the negro, 
in every possible event, of the benefit of that provi- 
sion of the United States Constitution which declares 20 
that " citizens of each State shall be entitled to all 
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 
States." 

Secondly. That, " subject to the Constitution of 



56 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the United States/' neither Congress nor a terri- 
torial legislature can exclude slavery from any 
United States Territory. This point is made in 
order that individual men may fill up the Territories 

5 with slaves, without danger of losing them as 
property, and thus enhance the chances of per- 
manency to the institution through all the future. 
Thirdly. That whether the holding a negro in 
actual slavery in a free State makes him free as 

10 against the holder, the United States Courts will 
not decide, but will leave to be decided by the 
courts of any slave State the negro may be forced 
into by the master. This point is made, not to 
be pressed immediately; but if acquiesced in for a 

15 while, and apparently indorsed by the people at 
an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion 
that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do 
with Dred Scott in the free State of Illinois, every 
other master may lawfully do, with any other one, 

20 or one thousand slaves in Illinois, or in any other 
free State. 

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand 
with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of 
it, is to educate and mould public opinion not to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 57 

care whether slavery is voted down or voted up. 
This shows exactly where we now are, and partially, 
also, whither we are tending. 

It will throw additional light on the latter, to go 
back, and run the mind over the string of historical 5 
facts already stated. Several things will now 
appear less dark and mysterious than they did 
when they were transpiring. The people were to 
be left " perfectly free," " subject only to the Con- 
stitution." What the Constitution had to do with 10 
it, outsiders could not then see. Plainly enough 
now ; it was an exactly fitted niche for the Dred Scott 
decision to afterwards come in, and declare the 
perfect freedom of the people to be just no freedom 
at all. Why was the amendment expressly declaring 15 
the right of the people voted down ? Plainly enough 
now: the adoption of it would have spoiled the 
niche for the Dred Scott decision. Why was the 
Court decision held up ? Why even a Senator's 
individual opinion withheld till after the presidential 20 
election? Plainly enough now: the speaking out 
then would have damaged the perfectly free argu- 
ment upon which the election was to be carried. 
Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the 



58 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

indorsement? Why the delay of a reargument? 
Why the incoming President's advance exhorta- 
tion in favor of the decision? These things 
look like the cautious patting and petting of a 

5 spirited horse, preparatory to mounting him, when 
it is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. 
And why the hasty after-indorsement of the decision 
by the President and others ? 

We cannot absolutely know that all these adapta- 

to tions are the result of preconcert. But when we see 
a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which 
we know have been gotten out at different times 
and places, and by different workmen — Stephen, 
Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance (Douglas, 

15 Pierce, Taney, Buchanan), — and when we see 
those timbers joined together, and see they exactly 
make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons 
and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and 
proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted 

20 to their respective places, and not a piece too many 
or too few, not omitting even scaffolding — or if a 
single piece be lacking, we see the place in the 
frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such 
piece in, — in such a case, we find it impossible 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 59 

not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger 
and James all understood one another from the 
beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or 
draft, drawn up before the first blow was struck. 

It should not be overlooked that by the Ne- 5 
braska Bill the people of a State as well as Terri- 
tory were to be left "perfectly free," "subject 
only to the Constitution. " Why mention a State ? 
They were legislating for Territories, and not for 
or about States. Certainly the people of a State 10 
are and ought to be subject to the Constitution 
of the United States; but why is mention of this 
lugged into this merely territorial law? Why 
are the people of a Territory and the people of 
a State therein lumped together, and their rela- 15 
tion to the Constitution therein treated as being 
precisely the same? While the opinion of the 
Court by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott 
case, and the separate opinions of all the concurring 
judges, expressly declare that the Constitution 20 
of the United States neither permits Congress 
nor a territorial legislature to exclude slavery from 
any United States Territory, they all omit to declare 
whether or not the same Constitution permits 



60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

a State or the people of a State to exclude it. Pos- 
sibly this is a mere omission ; but who can be quite 
sure if McLean or Curtis ° had sought to get into 
the opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the 

s people of a State to exclude slavery from their limits, 
— just as Chase and Mace ° sought to get such declara- 
tion in behalf of the people of a Territory, into the 
Nebraska Bill, — I ask, who can be quite sure that 
it would not have been voted down in the one 

10 case as it had been in the other ? The nearest 
approach to the point of declaring the power of a 
State over slavery is made by Judge Nelson. 
He approaches it more than once, using the pre- 
cise idea, and almost the language too, of the 

15 Nebraska act. On one occasion his exact language 
is " except in cases where the power is restrained 
by the Constitution of the United States, the law 
of the State is supreme over the subject of slavery 
within its jurisdiction." In what cases the power 

20 of the State is so restrained by the United States 
Constitution is left an open question, precisely as 
the same question, as to the restraint on the power 
of the Territories, was left open in the Nebraska act. 
Put this and that together, and we have another 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 61 

nice little niche, which we may, erelong, see filled 
with another Supreme Court decision, declaring 
that the Constitution of the United States does 
not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. 
And this may especially be expected if the doctrine 5 
of " care not whether slavery be voted down or voted 
up" shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently 
to give promise that such a decision can be main- 
tained when made. 

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of be- 10 
ing alike lawful in all the States. Welcome or un- 
welcome, such decision is probably coming, and 
will soon be upon us, unless the power of the pres- 
ent political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. 
We shall lie down, pleasantly dreaming that the 15 
people of Missouri are on the verge of making their 
State free, and we shall awake to the reality instead, 
that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave 
State. To meet and overthrow the power of that 
dynasty is the work now before all those who would 20 
pervent that consummation. That is what we have 
to do. How can we best do it? 

There are those who denounce us openly to 
their own friends, and yet whisper to us softly that 



62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is 
with which to effect that object. They wish us to 
infer all from the fact that he now has a little quar- 
rel with the present head of that dynasty, and that 

5 he has regularly voted with us on a single point, 
upon which he and we have never differed . They 
remind us that he is a great man and that the largest 
of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. 
But " a living dog is better than a dead lion. " Judge 

xo Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this work is at least 
a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the 
advances of slavery ? He don't care anything about 
it. His avowed mission is impressing the " public 
heart" to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas 

15 Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior 
talent will be needed to resist the revival of the 
African slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort 
to revive that trade is approaching ? He has not 
said so. Does he really think so ? But if it is, 

20 how can he resist it ? For years he has labored to 
prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro 
slaves into the new Territories. Can he possibly 
show that it is a less sacred right to buy them where 
they can be bought cheapest ? And unquestionably 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 63 

they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Vir- 
ginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the 
whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of 
property: and, as such, how can he oppose the 
foreign slave-trade ? — how can he refuse that trade 5 
in that property shall be " perfectly free, " unless he 
does it as a protection to home production ? And 
as the home producers will probably not ask the 
protection, he will be wholly without a ground of 
opposition. IC 

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may 
rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday — 
that he may rightfully change when he finds him- 
self wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, 
and infer that he will make any particular change, 15 
of which he himself has given no intimation ? Can 
we safely base our action upon any such vague 
inference ? 

Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge 
Douglas's position, question his motives, or do 20 
aught that can be personally offensive to him. 
Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together 
on principle, so that our cause may have assist- 
ance from his great ability, I hope to have inter- 



64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

posed no adventitious obstacle. But, clearly, he 
is not now with us — he does not pretend to be — 
he does not promise ever to be. 

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and con- 
5 ducted by, its own undoubted friends — those whose 
hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who 
do care for the result. Two years ago the Repub- 
licans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred 
thousand strong. We did this under the single 

10 impulse of resistance to a common danger, with 
every external circumstance against us. Of strange, 
discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered 
from the four winds, and formed and fought the 
battle through, under the constant hot fire of a 

15 disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we 
brave all then to falter now ? — now, when that same 
enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent ? The 
result is not doubtful. We shall not fail. If we stand 
firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate 

20 or mistakes delay it; but sooner or later the victory 
is sure to come. 



VIII 

FROM A SPEECH IN REPLY TO JUDGE DOUG- 
LAS'S CRITICISM OF THE " DIVIDED HOUSE " 
SPEECH MADE ON THE DAY PRECEDING THIS 
ONE, WHICH WAS DELIVERED BY LINCOLN ON 
JULY 10, 1858. 

Judge Douglas made two points upon my recent 
speech at Springfield. H*e says they are to be the 
issues of this campaign. The first one of these points 
he bases upon the language in a speech which I de- 
livered at Springfield, which I believe I can quote cor- 5 
rectly from memory. I said that "we are now far 
into the fifth year since a policy was instituted for the 
avowed object and with the confident promise of put- 
ting an end to slavery agitation; under the operation 
of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, 10 
but has constantly augmented. I believe it will not 
cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 
'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I 
believe this government cannot endure permanently 
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to 15 
f 65 





66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

be dissolved," — I am quoting from my speech, — 
"I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect 
it will cease to be divided. It will become all 
one thing or all the other. Either the opponents 

5 of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and 
place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief 
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its 
advocates will push it forward until it shall become 
alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, 

10 North as well as South." 

That is the paragraph ! In this paragraph which I 
have quoted in your hearing, and to which I ask the 
attention of all, Judge Douglas thinks he discovers 
great political heresy. I want your attention par- 

15 ticularly to what he has inferred from it. He says I 
am in favor of making all the States of this Union 
uniform in all their internal regulations; that in all 
their domestic concerns I am in favor of making 
them entirely uniform. He draws this inference 

20 from the language I have quoted to you. He says 
that I am in favor of making war by the North upon 
the South for the extinction of slavery ; that I am also 
in favor of inviting (as he expresses it) the South to 
a war upon the North for the purpose of nationalizing 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 67 

slavery. Now, it is singular enough, if you will care- 
fully read that passage over, that I did not say that I 
was in favor of anything in it. I only said what I 
expected would take place. I made a prediction only 
— it may have been a foolish one, perhaps. I did not 5 
even say that I desired that slavery should be put in 
course of ultimate extinction. I do say so now, 
however; so there need be no longer any difficulty 
about that. It may be written down in the great 
speech. 10 

Gentlemen, Judge Douglas informed you that this 
speech of mine was probably carefully prepared. I 
admit that it was. I am not master of language; 
I have not a fine education; I am not capable 
of entering into a disquisition upon dialectics, as 1 15 
believe you call it; but I do not believe the language 
I employed bears any such construction as Judge 
Douglas puts upon it. But I don't care about a 
quibble in regard to words. I know what I meant, 
and I will not leave this crowd in doubt, if I can 20 
explain it to them, what I really meant in the use 
of that paragraph. 

I am not, in the first place, unaware that this 
government has -endured eighty-two years half 



68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

slave and half free. I know that. I am tolerably 
well acquainted with the history of the country, 
and I know that it has endured eighty-two years 
half slave and half free. I believe — and that is 

5 what I meant to allude to there — I believe it has 
endured, because, during all that time, until the in- 
troduction of the Nebraska Bill, the public mind 
did rest all the time in the belief that slavery was 
in course of ultimate extinction. That was what 

iogave us the rest that we had through that period 
of eighty-two years; at least, so I believe. I have 
always hated slavery, I think, as much as any 
Abolitionist, — I have been an old-line Whig, — 
I have always hated it, but I have always been 

15 quiet about it until this new era of the introduc- 
tion of the Nebraska Bill began. I always be- 
lieved that everybody was against it, and that it 
was in course of ultimate extinction. . . . They 
had reason so to believe. 

20 The adoption of the Constitution and its attend- 
ant history led the people to believe so, and that 
such was the belief of the framers of the Con- 
stitution itself. Why did those old men, about 
the time of the adoption of the Constitution, decree 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 69 

that slavery should not go into the new Terri- 
tory where it had not already gone ? Why declare 
that within twenty years the African slave-trade, 
by which slaves are supplied, might be cut off by 
Congress? Why were all these acts? I mights 
enumerate more of these acts; but enough. 
What were they but a clear indication that the 
framers^ of the Constitution intended and expected 
the ultimate extinction of that institution? And 
now when I say, — as I said in my speech that Judge ro 
Douglas has quoted from, — when I say that I think 
the opponents of slavery will resist the further spread 
of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in 
the belief that it is in the course of ultimate ex- 
tinction, I only mean to say that they will place it 15 
where the founders of this government originally 
placed it. 

I have said a hundred times, and I have now 
no inclination to take it back, that I believe there 
is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the 20 
people of the free States, to enter into the slave 
States and interfere with the question of slavery 
at all. . . . And when it is said that I am in favor 
of interfering with slavery where it exists, I know 



70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

it is unwarranted by anything I have ever intended, 
and, as I believe, by anything I have ever said. If 
by any means I have ever used language which could 
fairly be so construed (as, however, I believe I never 
s have), I now correct it. . . . 

Now, in relation to his inference that I am in 
favor of a general consolidation of all the local 
institutions of the various States. ... I have 
said very many times in Judge Douglas's hearing 

iothat no man believed more than I in the prin- 
ciple of self-government; that it lies at the bottom 
of all my ideas of just government from beginning 
to end. ... I think that I have said it in your 
hearing, that I believe each individual is naturally 

15 entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the 
fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes 
with any other man's rights; that each community, 
as a State, has a right to do exactly as it pleases 
with all the concerns within that State that interfere 

20 with the right of no other State; and that the general 
government upon principle has no right to interfere 
with anything other than that general class of things 
that does concern the whole. I have said that at 
all times; I have said as illustrations that I do not 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 71 

believe in the right of Illinois to interfere with the 
cranberry laws of Indiana, the oyster laws of Virginia, 
or the liquor laws of Maine. 

How is it, then, that Judge Douglas infers, because 
I hope to see slavery put where the public mind 5 
shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
ultimate extinction, that I am in favor of Illinois 
going over and interfering with the cranberry laws 
of Indiana ? What can authorize him to draw any 
such inference ? I suppose there might be one 10 
thing that at least enabled him to draw such an 
inference, that would not be true with me or many 
others ; that is, because he looks upon all this mat- 
ter of slavery as an exceedingly little thing, — this 
matter of keeping one-sixth of the population of the 15 
whole nation in a state of oppression and tyranny 
unequalled in the world. He looks upon it as being 
an exceedingly little thing, only equal to the question 
of the cranberry laws of Indiana ; as something hav- 
ing no moral question in it; as something on a par zo 
with the question of whether a man shall pasture his 
land with cattle or plant it with tobacco ; so little and 
so small a thing that he concludes, if I could desire 
that anything should be done to bring about the 



12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ultimate extinction of that little thing, I must be in 
favor of bringing about an amalgamation of all the 
other little things in the Union. Now, it so happens — 
and there, I presume, is the foundation of this mistake 
5 — that the Judge thinks thus; and it so happens that 
there is a vast portion of the American people that 
do not look upon that matter as being this very little 
thing. They look upon it as a vast moral evil; they 
can prove it as such by the writings of those who gave 

ious the blessings of liberty which we enjoy, and that 
they so looked upon it, and not as an evil merely 
confining itself to the States where it is situated; and 
while we agree that by the Constitution we assented 
to, in the States where it exists we have no right to 

15 interfere with it, because it is in the Constitution, 
we are both by duty and inclination to stick by that 
Constitution in all its letter and spirit from beginning 
to end. 

So much, then, as to my disposition, my wish, to 

20 have all the State legislatures blotted out and 
to have one consolidated government and a uni- 
formity of domestic regulations in all the States; 
by which I suppose it is meant, if we raise corn here 
we must make sugar-cane grow here too, and we 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 73 

must make those things which grow North grow in 
the South. All this I suppose he understands I am 
in favor of doing. Now, so much for all this non- 
sense — for I must call it so. The Judge can have 
no issue with me on a question of establishing uni- 5 
formity in the domestic regulations of the States. . . 
My fellow-citizens, getting back a little, — for 
I pass from these points, — when Judge Douglas 
makes his threat of annihilation upon the " alliance," 
he is cautious to say that that warfare of his is 10 
to fall upon the leaders of the Republican party. 
Almost every word he utters and every distinction he 
makes has its significance. He means for the Re- 
publicans who do not count themselves as leaders to 
be his friends; he makes no fuss over them, it is the 15 
leaders that he is making war upon. He wants it 
understood that the mass of the Republican party 
are really his friends. It is only the leaders that are 
doing something, that are intolerant, and require 
extermination at his hands. As this is clearly and 20 
unquestionably the light in which he presents that 
matter, I want to ask your attention, addressing my- 
self to Republicans here, that I may ask you some 
questions as to where you, as the Republican party, 



74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

would be placed if you sustained Judge Douglas in 
his present position by a reelection ? I do not claim, 
gentlemen, to be unselfish; I do not pretend that I 
would not like to go to the United States Senate, — 

5 1 make no such hypocritical pretence; but I do say to 
you, that in this mighty issue it is nothing to you, 
nothing to the mass of the people of the nation, 
whether or not Judge Douglas or myself shall ever be 
heard of after this night. It may be a trifle to either 

oof us; but in connection with this mighty question, 
upon which hang the destinies of the nation, perhaps, 
it is absolutely nothing. But where will you be 
placed if you reindorse Judge Douglas ? Don't you 
know how apt he is, how exceedingly anxious he is, at 

15 all times to seize upon anything and everything to 
persuade you that something he has done you did 
yourselves ? Why, he tried to persuade you last 
night that our Illinois Legislature instructed him to 
introduce the Nebraska Bill. There was nobody in 

20 that Legislature ever thought of it; but still he fights 
furiously for the proposition; and that he did it 
because there was a standing instruction to our 
senators to be always introducing Nebraska bills. 
He tells you he is for the Cincinnati platform; 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 75 

he tells you he is for the Dred Scott decision; he 
tells you — not in his speech last night, but sub- 
stantially in a former speech — that he cares not 
if slavery is voted up or down; he tells you the 
struggle on Lecompton is past — it may come up 5 
again or not, and if it does, he stands where he 
stood when, in spite of him and his opposition, you 
built up the Republican party. If you indorse him, 
you tell him you do not care whether slavery be voted 
up or down, and he will close, or try to close, your 10 
mouths with his declaration, repeated by the day, 
the week, the month, and the year. . . . 

We were often, — more than once, at least, — 
in the course of Judge Douglas's speech last night, 
reminded that this government was made for white 15 
men, — that he believed it was made for white men. 
Well, that is putting it into a shape in which no 
one wants to deny it; but the Judge then goes into 
his passion for drawing inferences that are not war- 
ranted. I protest, now and forever, against that 20 
counterfeit logic which presumes that, because I do 
not want a negro woman for a slave, I do necessarily 
want her for wife. My understanding is, that I 
need not have her for either; but, as God made us 



76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

separate, we can leave one another alone, and do one 
another much good thereby. There are white men 
enough to marry all the white women, and enough 
black meii to marry all the black women; and in 

5 God's name let them be so married. The Judge 
regales us with the terrible enormities that take 
place by the mixture of races; that the inferior 
race bears the superior down. Why, Judge, if we 
do not let them get together in the Territories, they 

10 won't mix there. I should say at least that that 
was a self-evident truth. 

Now, it happens that we meet together once every 
year, somewhere about the 4th of July, for some 
reason or other. These 4th of July gatherings, 

75 1 suppose, have their uses. If you will indulge 
me, I will state what I suppose to be some of 
them. 

We are now a mighty nation: we are thirty, or 
about thirty, millions of people, and we own and 

20 inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the dry land of 
the whole earth. We run our memory back over 
the pages of history for about eighty-two years, and 
we discover that we were then a very small people in 
point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 77 

with a vastly less extent of country, with vastly less 
of everything we deem desirable among men. We 
look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous 
to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something 
that happened away back, as in some way or other 5 
being connected with this rise of prosperity. We 
find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as 
our fathers and grandfathers; they were iron men; 
they fought for the principle that they were contend- 
ing for, and we understand that by what they then 10 
did, it has followed that the degree of prosperity 
which we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this 
annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the 
good done in this process of time, — of how it was 
done, and who did it, and how we are historically 15 
connected with it; and we go from these meetings 
in better humor with ourselves, — we feel more at- 
tached the one to the other, and more firmly bound 
to the country we inhabit. In every way we are 
better men, in the age and race and country in which 20 
we live, for these celebrations. But after we have 
done all this, we have not yet reached the^whole. 
There is something else connected with it. We 
have, besides these men — descended by blood from 



78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

our ancestors — among us, perhaps half our people 
who are not descendants at all of these men; they 
are men who have come from Europe, — German, 
Irish, French, and Scandinavian, — men that have 

5 come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors 
have come hither and settled here, finding themselves 
our equal in all things. If they look back through 
this history, to trace their connection with those days 
by blood, they find they have none : they cannot carry 

io themselves back into that glorious epoch and make 
themselves feel that they are part of us; but when 
they look through that old Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, they find that those old men say that 
"we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all 

is men are created equal," and then they feel that 
that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences 
their relation to those men, that it is the father of 
all moral principle in them, and that they have 
a right to claim it as though they were blood of 

zothe blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who 
wrote that Declaration; and so they are. That 
is the electric cord in that Declaration that links 
the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men to- 
gether; that will link those patriotic hearts as long 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 79 

as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men 
throughout the world. 

Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with 
this idea of " don't care if slavery is voted up or 
voted down"; for sustaining the Dred Scott decision; 5 
for holding that the Declaration of Independence 
did not mean anything at all, — we have Judge 
Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declara- 
tion of Independence means, and we have him 
saying that the people of America are equal to the 10 
people of England. According to his construction, 
you Germans are not connected with it. Now, I 
ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged 
in, if ratified, if confirmed and indorsed, if taught to 
our children and repeated to them, do not tend to 15 
rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and 
to transform this government into a government of 
some other form? Those arguments that are made, 
that the inferior race are to be treated with as much 
allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as 20 
much is to be done for them as their condition will 
allow, : — what are these arguments? They are the 
arguments that kings have made for enslaving the 
people in all ages of the world. You will find that 



80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

all the arguments in favor of kingcraft were of this 
class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, 
— not that they wanted to do it, but because the 
people were better off for being ridden. That is 

5 their argument; and this argument of the Judge 
is the same old serpent, that says, " You work, and I 
eat; you toil, and I will enjoy the fruits of it." Turn 
it whatever way you will, — whether it come from 
the mouth of a king, an excuse for enslaving the 

i° people of his country, or from the mouth of men of 
one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another 
race, — it is all the same old serpent; and I hold, 
if that course of argumentation that is made for the 
purpose of convincing the public mind that we 

15 should not care about this, should be granted, it 
does not stop with the negro. I should like to 
know — taking this old Declaration of Independence, 
which declares that all men are equal, upon prin- 
ciple, and making exceptions to it — where will it 

20 stop? If one man says it does not mean a negro, 
why not another say it does not mean some other 
man? If that Declaration is not the truth, let us 
get the statute-book in which we find it, and tear 
it out! Who is so bold as to do it? If it is not 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 81 

true, let us tear it out. [Cries of "No! No!"] 
Let us stick to it, then; let us stand firmly by it, 
then. 

It may be argued that there are certain conditions 
that make necessities and impose them upon us, and 5 
to the extent that a necessity is imposed upon a man, 
he must submit to it. I think that was the condition 
in which we found ourselves when we established 
this government. We had slaves among us; we 
could not get our Constitution unless we permitted 1° 
them to remain in slavery; we could not secure the 
good we did secure, if we grasped for more; but, 
having by necessity submitted to that much, it 
does not destroy the principle that is the char- 
ter of our liberties. Let that charter stand as our 15 
standard. 

My friend has said to me that I am a poor hand 
to quote Scripture. I will try it again, however. 
It is said in one of the admonitions of our Lord, "Be 
ye [therefore] perfect even as your Father which is 20 
in heaven is perfect." The Saviour, I suppose, did 
not expect that any human creature could be perfect 
as Father in heaven; but He said: " As your Father 
in heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect." He set 



82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

that up as a standard, and he who did most toward 
reaching that standard attained the highest degree 
of moral perfection. So I say in relation to the 
principle that all men are created equal, let it be as 

5 nearly reached as we can. If we cannot give freedom 
to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose 
slavery upon any other creature. Let us, then, turn 
this government back into the channel in which 
the framers of the Constitution orginally placed it. 

10 Let us stand firmly by each other. If we do not do 
so, we are tending in the contrary direction, that our 
friend, Judge Douglas, proposes, — not intentionally, 
— working in the traces that tend to make this one 
universal slave nation. He is one that runs in that 

15 direction, and as such I resist him. 

My friends, I have detained you about as long as 
I desired to do, and I have only to say, let us discard 
all this quibbling about this man and the other man, 
this race and that race and the other race being 

20 inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an 
inferior position. Let us discard all these things , and 
unite as one people throughout this land, until we 
shall once more stand up declaring that all men are 
created equal. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 83 

My friends, I could not, without launching off upon 
some new topic, which would detain you too long, 
continue to-night. I thank you for this most exten- 
sive audience that you have furnished me to-night. 
I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn 5 
in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt 
that all men are created free and equal. 



IX 

FROM LINCOLN'S REPLY TO DOUGLAS IN THE 
SEVENTH AND LAST JOINT DEBATE, AT ALTON, 
ILLINOIS, OCTOBER 15, 1858. 

I have stated upon former occasions, and I may 
as well state again, what I understand to be the 
real issue of this controversy between Judge Doug- 
las and myself. On the point of rny wanting to 

5 make war between the free and the slave States, 
there has been no issue between us. So, too, when 
he assumes that I am in favor of introducing a 
perfect social and political equality between the 
white and black races. These are false issues, 

foupon which Judge Douglas has tried to force the 
controversy. There is no foundation in truth for 
the charge that I maintain either of these propo- 
sitions. The real issue in this controversy — the 
one pressing upon every mind — is the sentiment on 

rsthe part of one class that looks upon the institu- 
tion of slavery as a wrong, and of another class 

84 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 85 

that does not look upon it as a wrong. The senti- 
ment that contemplates the institution of slavery 
in this country as a wrong is the sentiment of the 
Republican party. It is the sentiment around 
which all their actions, all their arguments, circle; 5 
from which all their propositions radiate. They 
look upon it as being a moral, social, and political 
wrong; and while they contemplate it as such, 
they nevertheless have due regard for its actual 
existence among us, and the difficulties of getting 10 
rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the con- 
stitutional obligations thrown about it. Yet hav- 
ing a due regard for these, they desire a policy in 
regard to it that looks to its not creating any more 
danger. They insist that it, as far as may be, 15 
be treated as a wrong, and one of the methods of 
treating it as a wrong is to make provision that it 
shall grow no larger. They also desire a policy 
that looks to a peaceful end of slavery sometime, 
as being a wrong. These are the views they enter- 20 
tain in regard to it, as I understand them; and all 
their sentiments, all their arguments and propo- 
sitions, are brought within this range. I have 
said, and I repeat it here, that if there be a man 



86 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

amongst us who does not think that the institu- 
tion of slavery is wrong in any one of the aspects of 
which I have spoken, he is misplaced, and ought 
not to be with us. And if there be a man amongst 
5 us who is so impatient of it as a wrong as to disre- 
gard its actual presence among us and the difficulty 
of getting rid of it suddenly in a satisfactory way, 
and to disregard the constitutional obligations 
thrown about it, that man is misplaced if he is on 

ioour platform. We disclaim sympathy with him in 

practical action. He is not placed properly with us. 

On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and 

limiting its spread, let me say a word. Has anything 

ever threatened the existence of this Union save and 

is except this very institution of slavery ? What is 
it that we hold most dear amongst us ? Our own 
liberty and prosperity. What has ever threatened 
our liberty and prosperity save and except this 
institution of slavery ? If this is true, how do you 

20 propose to improve the condition of things by en- 
larging slavery — by spreading it out and making 
it bigger ? You may have a wen or cancer upon 
your person, and not be able to cut it out lest you 
bleed to death; but surely it is no way to cure it, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 87 

to engraft it and spread it over your whole body. 
That is no proper way of treating what you regard 
as a wrong. You see this peaceful way of dealing 
with it as a wrong — restricting the spread of it, 
and not allowing it to go into new countries where 5 
it has not already existed. That is the peaceful 
way, the old-fashioned way, the way in which the 
fathers themselves set us the example. 

On the other hand, I have said there is a senti- 
ment which treats it as not being wrong. That is 10 
the Democratic sentiment of this day. I do not 
mean to say that every man who stands within 
that range positively asserts that it is right. That 
class will include all who positively assert that it is 
right, and all who, like Judge Douglas, treat it as 15 
indifferent, and do not say it is either right or 
wrong. These two classes of men fall within the 
general class of those who do not look upon it as a 
wrong. And if there be among you anybody who 
supposes that he, as a Democrat, can consider him- 2 o 
self "as much opposed to slavery as anybody," I 
would like to reason with him. You never treat 
it as a wrong. What other thing that you con- 
sider as a wrong, do you deal with as you deal with 



88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

that ? Perhaps you say it is wrong, but your 
leader never does, and you quarrel with anybody 
who says it is wrong. Although you pretend to 
say so yourself, you can find no fit place to deal 

5 with it as a wrong. You must not say anything 
about it in the free States, because it is not here. 
You must not say anything about it in the slave 
States, because it is there. You must not say 
anything about it in the pulpit, because that is reli- 

10 gion, and has nothing to do with it. You must not 
say anything about it in politics, because that will 
disturb the security of "my place." There is no 
place to talk about it as being a wrong, although 
you say yourself it is a wrong. But finally you 

15 will screw yourself up to the belief that if the people 
of the slave States should adopt a system of gradual 
emancipation on the slavery question, you would 
be in favor of it. You would be in favor of it! 
You say that is getting it in the right place, and you 

20 would be glad to see it succeed. But you are deceiv- 
ing yourself. You all know that Frank Blair and 
Gratz Brown, down there in St. Louis, undertook 
to introduce that system in Missouri. They fought 
as valiantly as they could for the system of gradual 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 89 

emancipation which you pretend you would be 
glad to see succeed. Now I will bring you to the 
test. After a hard fight, they were beaten; and 
when the news came over here, you threw up your 
hats and hurrahed for Democracy. More than 5 
that, take all the argument made in favor of the 
system you have proposed, and it carefully excludes 
the idea that there is anything wrong in the insti- 
tution of slavery. The arguments to sustain that 
policy carefully exclude it. Even here to-day you 10 
heard Judge Douglas quarrel with me because I 
uttered a wish that it might sometime come to an 
end. Although Henry Clay could say he wished 
every slave in the United States was in the country 
of his ancestors, I am denounced by those pretend- 15 
ing to respect Henry Clay for uttering a wish that 
it might sometime, in some peaceful way, come 
to an end. 

The Democratic policy in regard to that institu- 
tion will not tolerate the merest breath, the slightest 20 
hint, of the least degree of wrong about it. Try it 
by some of Judge Douglas's arguments. He says he 
" don't care whether it is voted up or voted down " 
in the Territories. I do not care myself, in dealing 



90 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

with that expression, whether it is intended to be 
expressive of his individual sentiments on the sub- 
ject, or only of the national policy he desires to have 
established. It is alike valuable for my purpose. 

5 Any man can say that who does not see anything 
wrong in slavery, but no man can logically say it 
who does see a wrong in it; because no man can 
logically say he don't care whether a wrong is voted 
up or voted down. He may say he don't care 

i o whether an indifferent thing is voted up or down, 
but he must logically have a choice between a right 
thing and a wrong thing. He contends that what- 
ever community wants slaves has a right to have 
them. So they have if it is not a wrong. But 

i 5 if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a 
right to do wrong. He says that, upon the score of 
equality, slaves should be allowed to go into a new 
Territory like other property. This is strictly logi- 
cal if there is no difference between it and other 

20 property. If it and other property are equal, his 
argument is entirely logical. But if you insist that 
one is wrong and the other right, there is no use to 
institute a comparison between right and wrong. 
You may turn over everything in the Democratic 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 91 

policy from beginning to end, whether in the shape 
it takes on the statute-book, in the shape it takes in 
the Dred Scott decision, in the shape it takes in 
conversation, or the shape it takes in short maxim- 
like arguments — it everywhere carefully excludes 5 
the idea that there is anything wrong in it. 

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will 
continue in this country when these poor tongues of 
Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is 
the eternal struggle between these two principles — I0 
right and wrong — throughout the world. They 
are the two principles that have stood face to face 
from the beginning of time; and will ever continue 
to struggle. The one is the common right of hu- 
manity, and the other the divine right of kings. It 15 
is the same principle in whatever shape it develops 
itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You toil 
and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No 
matter in what shape it comes, whether from the 
mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people 20 
of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, 
or from one race of men as an apology for enslav- 
ing another race, it is the same tyrannical principle. 

I was glad to express my gratitude at Quincy, and 



92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

I reexpress it here to Judge Douglas — that he 
looks to no end of the institution of slavery. That 
will help the people to see where the struggle really 
is. It will hereafter place with us all men who 

5 really do wish the wrong may have an end. And 
whenever we can get rid of the fog which obscures 
the real question, — when we can get Judge Doug- 
las and his friends to avow a policy looking to its 
perpetuation, — we can get out from among them 

10 that class of men and bring them to the side of those 
who treat it as a wrong. Then there will soon be 
an end of it, and that end will be its "ultimate 
extinction." Whenever the issue can be distinctly 
made, and all extraneous matter thrown out, so 

15 that men can fairly see the real difference between 
the parties, this controversy will soon be settled, 
and it will be done peaceably too. There will be no 
war, no violence. It will be placed again where the 
wisest and best men of the world placed it. Brooks 

20 of South Carolina once declared that when this Con- 
stitution was framed, its framers did not look to 
the institution existing until this day. When he 
said this, I think he stated a fact that is fully borne 
out by the history of the times. But he also said 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 93 

they were better and wiser men than the men of 
these days; yet the men of these days had expe- 
rience which they had not, and by the invention of 
the cotton-gin it became a necessity in this country 
that slavery should be perpetual. I now say that, s 
willingly or unwillingly, purposely or without pur- 
pose, Judge Douglas has been the most prominent 
instrument in changing the position of the insti- 
tution to slavery, — -which the fathers of the govern- 
ment expected to come to an end ere this, — and 10 
putting it upon Brooks's cotton-gin basis — plac- 
ing it where he openly confesses he has no desire 
there shall ever be an end of it. 



X 

FROM THE ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE, 
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 27, 1860. 

Mr. President and Fellow-citizens of New York: 
The facts with which I shall deal this evening are 
mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything new 
in the general use I shall make of them. If there 
5 shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of pre- 
senting the facts, and the inferences and observa- 
tions following that presentation. In his speech 
last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in 
the New York Times, Senator Douglas said : — 

io Our fathers, when they framed the government 

under which we live, understood this question 
just as well, and even better, than we do now. 

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for 
this discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a 
1 5 precise and an agreed starting-point for a discus- 
sion between Republicans and that wing of the 
Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply 

94 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 95 

leaves the inquiry: What was the understanding 
those fathers had of the question mentioned ? 

What is the frame of government under which we 
live? The answer must be, "The Constitution of 
the United States." That Constitution consists of 5 
the original, framed in 1787, and under which the 
present government first went into operation, and 
twelve subsequently framed amendments, the first 
ten of which were framed in 1789. 

Who were our fathers that framed the Consti- io 
tution ? I suppose the "thirty-nine" who signed 
the original instrument may be fairly called our 
fathers who framed that part of the present govern- 
ment. It is almost exactly true to say they framed 
it, and it is altogether true to say they fairly repre- 15 
sented the opinion and sentiment of the whole 
nation at that time. Their names, being familiar 
to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not 
now be repeated. 

I take these "thirty-nine," for the present, . as 20 
being "our fathers who framed the government 
under which we live." What is the question which, 
according to the text, those fathers understood 
"just as well, and even better, than we do now"? 



96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

It is this: Does the proper division of local 
from Federal authority, or anything in the Consti- 
tution, forbid our Federal Government to control 
as to slavery in our Federal Territories ? 
5 Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, 
and Republicans the negative. This affirmation 
and denial form an issue ; and this issue — this 
question — is precisely what the text declares our 
fathers understood " better than we." Let us now 

10 inquire whether the " thirty-nine," or any of them, 
ever acted upon this question; and if they did, 
how they acted upon it — how they expressed 
that better understanding. . . . 

Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our 

15 thirty-nine fathers "who framed the government 
under which we live," who have, upon their official 
responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon 
the very question which the text affirms they " un- 
derstood just as well, and even better, than we do 

20 now "; and twenty-one of them — a clear majority 
of the whole " thirty-nine " — so acting upon it as 
to make them guilty of gross political impropriety 
and wilful perjury if, in their understanding, any 
proper division between local and Federal authority, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 97 

or anything in the Constitution they had made 
themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
the Federal Territories. Thus the twenty-one 
acted; and, as actions speak louder than words, 5 
so actions under such responsibility speak still 
louder. . . . 

The sum of the whole is that of our thirty-nine 
fathers who framed the original Constitution, 
twenty-one — a clear majority of the whole — cer- 10 
tainly understood that no proper division of local 
from Federal authority, nor any part of the Consti- 
tution, forbade the Federal Government to control 
slavery in the Federal Territories; while all the 
rest had probably the same understanding. Such, 15 
unquestionably, was the understanding of our 
fathers who framed the original Constitution; and 
the text affirms that they understood the question 
" better than we." 

B.ut, so far, I have been considering the under- 20 
standing of the question manifested by the framers 
of the original Constitution. In and by the original 
instrument, a mode was provided for amending it; 
and, as I have already stated, the present frame of 



98 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

''the government under which we live " ^consists 
of that original, and twelve amendatory articles 
framed and adopted since. . . . 

It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine 

5 framers of the original Constitution, and the sev- 
enty-six members of the Congress which framed the 
amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly 
include those who may be fairly called "our fathers 
who framed the government under which we live." 

ro And so assuming, I defy any man to show that any 
one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that, 
in his understanding, any proper division of local 
from Federal authority, or any part of the Consti- 
tution, forbade the Federal Government to control 

'■5 as to slavery in the Federal Territories. I go a step 
further. I defy any one to show that any living 
man in the whole world ever did, prior to the begin- 
ning of the present century (and I might almost say 
prior to the beginning of the last half of the present 

so century), declare that, in his understanding, .any 
proper division of local from Federal authority, or 
any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal 
Government to control as to slavery in the Federal 
Territories. To those who now so declare I give 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 99 

not only "our fathers who framed the government 
under which we live," but with them all other living 
men within the century in which it was framed, 
among whom to search, and they shall not be able 
to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with 5 
them. 

Now, and here, let me guard a little against being 
misunderstood. I do not mean to say we are bound 
to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To 
do so would be to discard all the lights of current ex- 10 
perience — to reject all progress, all improvement. 
What I do say is that if we would supplant the opin- 
ions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should 
do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so 
clear, that even their great authority, fairly con- 15 
sidered and weighed, cannot stand; and most 
surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare 
they understood the question better than we. 

If any man at this day sincerely believes that a 
proper division of local from Federal authority, or 20 
any part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal 
Government to control as to slavery in the Federal 
Territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his 
position by all truthful evidence and fair argument 



100 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

which he can. But he has no right to mislead 
others, who have less access to history, and less 
leisure to study it, into the false belief that "our 
fathers who framed the government under which 

5 we live" were of the same opinion — thus substi- 
tuting falsehood and deception for truthful evidence 
and fair argument. If any man at this day sincerely 
believes "our fathers who framed the government 
under which we live" used and applied principles, 

o in other cases, which ought to have led them to 
understand that a proper division of local from 
Federal authority, or some part of the Con- 
stitution, forbids the Federal Government to 
control as to slavery in the Federal Territories, 

5 he is right to say so. But he should, at the 
same time, brave the responsibility of declaring 
that, in his opinion, he understands their princi- 
ples better than they did themselves; and espe- 
cially should he not shirk that responsibility by 

io asserting that they " understood the question just 
as well, and even better, than we do now." 

But enough! Let all who believe that "our 
fathers who framed the government under which 
we live understood this question just as well, and 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 101 

even better, than we do now," speak as they spoke, 
and act as they acted upon it. This is all Repub- 
licans ask — all Republicans desire — in relation 
to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let it be 
again marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to 5 
be tolerated and protected only because of and so 
far as its actual presence among us makes that 
toleration and protection a necessity. Let all the 
guaranties those fathers gave it be not grudgingly, 
but fully and fairly, maintained. For this Repub- *° 
licans contend, and with this, so far as I know or 
believe, they will be content. 

And now, if they would listen, — as I suppose 
they will not, — I would address a few words to 
the Southern people. 15 

I would say to them: You consider yourselves a 
reasonable and a just people; and I consider that in 
the general qualities of reason and justice you are 
not inferior to any other people. Still, when you 
speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce 20 
us as reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than 
outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or 
murderers, but nothing like it to " Black Repub- 
licans." In all your contentions with one another, 



102 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

each of you deems an unconditional condemnation 
of " Black Republicanism" as the first thing to be 
attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us 
seems to be an indispensable prerequisite — license, 
5 so to speak — among you to be admitted or per- 
mitted to speak at all. Now can you or not be 
prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this 
is quite just to us, or even to yourselves ? Bring 
forward your charges and specifications, and then 

iobe patient long enough to hear us deny or justify. 

You say we are sectional. We deny it. That 

makes an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. 

You produce your proof; and what is it ? Why, 

that our party has no existence in your section — 

is gets no votes in your section. The fact is substan- 
tially true; but does it prove the issue ? If it 
does, then in case we should, without change of 
principle, begin to get votes in your section, we 
should thereby cease to be sectional. You cannot 

20 escape this conclusion; and yet, are you willing to 
abide by it ? If you are, you will probably soon 
find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we 
shall get votes in your section this very year. You 
will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 103 

that your proof does not touch the issue. The fact 
that we get no votes in your section is a fact of your 
making, and not of ours. And if there be fault in 
that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains 
so until you show that we repel you by some wrong 5 
principle or practice. If we do repel you by any 
wrong principle or practice, the fault is ours; but 
this brings you to where you ought to have started 
— to a discussion of the right or wrong of our 
principle. If our principle, put in practice, would 10 
wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for 
any other object, then our principle, and we with 
it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and de- 
nounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of 
whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong 15 
your section; and so meet us as if it were possible 
that something may be said on our side. Do you 
accept the challenge ? No! Then you really 
believe that the principle which "our fathers who 
framed the government under which we live "20 
thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse 
it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in 
fact so clearly wrong as to demand your condem- 
nation without a moment's consideration. 



104 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the 
warning against sectional parties given by Wash- 
ington in his Farewell Address. Less than eight 
years before Washington gave that warning, he had, 
5 as President of the United States, approved and 
signed an act of Congress enforcing the prohibition 
of slavery in the Northwestern Territory, which act 
embodied the policy of the government upon that 
subject up to and at the very moment he penned 

iothat warning; and about one year after he penned 
it, he wrote Lafayette that he considered that 
prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same 
connection his hope that we should at some time 
have a confederacy of free States. 

i 5 Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism 
has since arisen upon this same subject, is that 
warning a weapon in your hands against us, or in 
our hands against you ? Could Washington him- 
self speak, would he cast the blame of that section- 

20 alism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon you, 
who repudiate it ? We respect that warning of 
Washington, and we commend it to you, together 
with his example pointing to the right application 
of it, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 105 

But you say you are conservative — eminently 
conservative — while we are revolutionary, destruc- 
tive, or something of the sort. What is conserva- 
tism ? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, 
against the new and untried ? We stick to, con- 5 
tend for, the identical old policy on the point in 
controversy which was adopted by "our fathers 
who framed the government under which we live"; 
while you with one accord reject, and scout, and 
spit upon that old policy, and insist upon sub- 10 
stituting something new. True, you disagree 
among yourselves as to what that substitute shall 
be. You are divided on new propositions and 
plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and 
denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of i 5 
you are for reviving the foreign slave-trade; some 
for a congressional slave code for the Territories; 
some for Congress forbidding the Territories to 
prohibit slavery within their limits; some for 
maintaining slavery in the Territories through 20 
the judiciary; some for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple " 
that "if one man would enslave another, no third 
man should object," fantastically called " popu- 
lar sovereignty"; but never a man among you is 



106 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

in favor of Federal prohibition of slavery in Federal 
Territories, according to the practice of " our fathers 
who framed the government under which we live." 
Not one of all your various plans can show a 
5 precedent or an advocate in the century within 
which our government originated. Consider, then, 
whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, 
and your charge of destructiveness against us, are 
based on the most clear and stable foundations. 
ro Again, you say we have made the slavery question 
more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. 
We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny 
that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who 
discarded the old policy of the fathers. We re- 
sisted, and still resist, your innovation; and thence 
comes the greater prominence of the question. 
Would you have that question reduced to its for- 
mer proportions ? Go back to that old policy. 
What has been will be again, under the same con- 
20 ditions. If you would have the peace of the old 
times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old 
times. 

You charge that we stir up insurrections among 
your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN' 107 

Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was 
no Republican; and you have failed to impli- 
cate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry 
enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty 
in that matter, you know it, or you do not know it. 5 
If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not desig- 
nating the man and proving the fact. If you do 
not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, 
and especially for persisting in the assertion after 
you have tried and failed to make the proof. You 10 
need not be told that persisting in a charge which 
one does not know to be true, is simply malicious 
slander. . . . 

John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a 
slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white 15 
men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which 
the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was 
so absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, 
saw plainly enough it could not succeed. That 
affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many 20 
attempts, related in history, at the assassination 
of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over 
the oppression of a people till he fancies himself 
commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ven- 



108 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tures the attempt, which ends in little less than 
his own execution. . . . 

And how much would it avail 3^ou, if you could, 
by the use of John Brown, Helper's Book, and 
5 the like, break up the Republican organization? 
Human action can be modified to some extent, 
but human nature cannot be changed. There is 
a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this 
nation, which cast at least a million and a half of 

10 votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and 
feeling — that sentiment — by breaking up the 
political organization which rallies around it. . . . 
But you will break up the Union rather than sub- 
mit to a denial of your constitutional rights. 

x 5 That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it 
would be palliated, if not fully justified, were we 
proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to deprive 
you of some right plainly written down in the Con- 
stitution. But we are proposing no such thing. 

20 When you make these declarations you have a 
specific and well-understood allusion to an assumed 
constitutional right of yours to take slaves into the 
Federal Territories, and to hold them there as prop- 
erty. But no such right is specifically written in 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 109 

the Constitution. That instrument is literally 
silent about any such right. We, on the contrary, 
deny that such a right has any existence in the 
Constitution, even by implication. 

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you 5 
will destroy the government, unless you be allowed 
to construe and force the Constitution as you please, 
on all points in dispute between you and us. You 
will rule or ruin in all events. 

This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps 10 
you will say the Supreme Court has decided the 
disputed constitutional question in your favor. 
Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction 
between dictum and decision, the court has decided 
the question for you in a sort of way. The court i 5 
has substantially said, it is your constitutional 
right to take slaves into the Federal Territories, 
and to hold them there as property. When I say 
the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean it 
was made in a divided court, by a bare majority 20 
of the judges, and they not quite agreeing with one 
another in the reasons for making it; that it is so 
made as that its avowed supporters disagree with 
one another about its meaning, and that it was 



110 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact — 
the statement in the opinion that "the right of 
property in a slave is distinctly and expressly 
affirmed in the Constitution." 

5 An inspection of the Constitution will show that 
the right of property in a slave is not " distinctly 
and expressly affirmed" in it. Bear in mind, the 
judges do not pledge their judicial opinion that 
such right is impliedly affirmed in the Constitution; 

obut they pledge their veracity that it is "distinctly 
and expressly" affirmed there — "distinctly," that 
is, not mingled with anything else — "expressly," 
that is, in words meaning just that, without the 
aid of any inference, and susceptible of no other 

t5 meaning. 

If they had only pledged their judicial opinion 
that such right is affirmed in the instrument by 
implication, it would be open to others to show that 
neither the word "slave" nor "slavery" is to be 

20 found in the Constitution, nor the word "property" 
even, in any connection with language alluding to 
the things slave, or slavery; and that wherever in 
that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is called 
a "person"; and wherever his master's legal right 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 111 

in relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as 
" service or labor which may be due" — as a debt 
payable in service or labor. Also it would be open 
to show, by contemporaneous history, that this 
mode of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of 5 
speaking of them, was employed on purpose to ex- 
clude from the Constitution the idea that there 
could be property in man. 

To show all this is easy and certain. 

When this obvious mistake of the judges shall be 10 
brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to expect 
that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, 
and reconsider the conclusion based upon it ? 

And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers 
who framed the government under which we live" 15 
— the men who made the Constitution — decided 
this same constitutional question in our favor 
long ago: decided it without division among them- 
selves when making the decision; without division 
among themselves about the meaning of it after 20 
it was made, and, so far as any evidence is left, 
without basing it upon any mistaken statement of 
facts. 

Under all these circumstances, do you really 



112 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

feel yourselves justified to break up this govern- 
ment unless such a court decision as yours is shall 
be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final 
rule of political action ? But you will not abide 

5 the election of a Republican President ! In that 
supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; 
and then, you say, the great crime of having de- 
stroyed it will be upon us ! That is cool. A high- 
wayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters 

10 through his teeth, " Stand and deliver, or I shall 
kill you, and then you will be a murderer ! " 

To be sure, what a robber demanded of me — my 
money — - was my own ; and I had a clear right to 
keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote 

1 5 is my own ; and the threat of death to me, to extort 
my money, and the threat of destruction to the 
Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distin- 
guished in principle. 

A few words now to the Republicans. It is ex- 

20 ceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Con- 
federacy shall be at peace, and in harmony one with 
another. Let us Republicans do our part to have 
it so. Even though much provoked, let us do noth- 
ing through passion and ill temper. Even though 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 113 

the Southern people will not so much as listen to 
us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield 
to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we 
possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and 
by the subject and nature of their controversy with 5 
us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them. 

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be uncon- 
ditionally surrendered to them ? We know they 
will not. In all their present complaints against us, 
the Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions 10 
and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy 
them if, in the future, we have nothing to do with 
invasions and insurrections ? We know it will not. 
We so know, because we know we never had any- 
thing to do with invasions and insurrections; and 15 
yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from 
the charge and the denunciation. . . . 

These natural and apparently adequate means 
all failing, what will convince them ? This, and 
this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join 20 
them in calling it right. And this must be done 
thoroughly — done in acts as well as in words. 
Silence will not be tolerated — we must place our- 
selves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas's 



114 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, 
suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, 
whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, 
or in private. We must arrest and return their 

5 fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must 
pull down our free State constitutions. The whole 
atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of 
opposition to slavery, before they will cease to be- 
lieve that all their troubles proceed from us. 

° I am quite aware they do not state their case 
precisely in this way. Most of them would probably 
say to us, "Let us alone; do nothing to us, and say 
what you please about slavery." But we do let 
them alone, — have never disturbed them, — so 

s that, after all, it is what we say which dissatisfies 
them. They will continue to accuse us of doing, 
until we cease saying. 

I am also aware they have not as yet in terms de- 
manded the overthrow of our free State constitu- 

>o tions. Yet those constitutions declare the wrong of 
slavery with more solemn emphasis than do all 
other sayings against it; and when all these other 
sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of 
these constitutions will be demanded, and nothing 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 115 

be left to resist the demand. It is nothing to the 
contrary that they do not demand the whole of this 
just now. Demanding what they do, and for the 
reason they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere 
short of this consummation. Holding, as they do, 5 
that slavery is morally right and socially elevating, 
they cannot cease to demand a full national recog- 
nition of it as a legal right and a social blessing. 

Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground 
save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If 10 
slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitu- 
tions against it are themselves wrong, and should 
be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we can- 
not justly object to its nationality — its universality; 
if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its 15 
extension — its enlargement. All they ask we could 
readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we 
ask they could as readily grant, if they thought it 
wrong. Their thinking it right and our thinking 
it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends 20 
the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they 
do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recog- 
nition as being right; but thinking it wrong, as we 
do, can we yield to them ? Can we cast our votes 



116 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

with their view, and against our own ? In view of 
our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can 
we do this ? 

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford 
s to let it alone where it is, because that much is 
due to the necessity arising from its actual presence 
in the nation; but can we, while our votes will 
prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Ter- 
ritories, and to overrun us here in these free States ? 

10 If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by 
our duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be 
diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances 
wherewith we are so industriously plied and be- 
labored — contrivances such as groping for some 

15 middle ground between the right and the wrong: 
vain as the search for a man who should be neither 
a living man nor a dead man; such as a policy of 
" don't care" on a question about which all true 
men do care; such as Union appeals beseeching 

20 true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing 
the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but 
the righteous to repentance; such as invocations 
to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Wash- 
ington said and undo what Washington did. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 111 

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false 
accusations against us, nor frightened from it by 
menaces of destruction to the government, nor of 
dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that 
right makes might, and in that faith let us to the 5 
end dare to do our duty as we understand it. 



XI 



FAREWELL TO THE CITIZENS OF SPRINGFIELD 
ON LINCOLN'S DEPARTURE FOR WASHING- 
TON, FEBRUARY 11, 1861. 

My Friends: No one, not in my position, can 
appreciate the sadness I feel at this parting. To 
this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived 
more than a quarter of a century; here my children 

5 were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know 
not how soon I shall see you again. A duty devolves 
upon me which is, perhaps, greater than that which 
has devolved upon any other man since the days 
of Washington. He never would have succeeded 

io except by the aid of Divine Providence, upon which 
he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed 
without the same Divine aid which sustained him, 
and on the same Almighty Being I place my reliance 
for support; and I hope you, my friends, will all 

15 pray that I may receive that Divine assistance, 
without which I cannot succeed, but with which 
success is certain. Again I bid you an affectionate 
farewell. 

118 



XII 

ADDRESSES DELIVERED BY LINCOLN ON THE 
JOURNEY FROM SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, TO 
WASHINGTON, D.C., FEBRUARY 11 TO 27, 1861. 

REPLY TO AN ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT INDIAN- 
APOLIS, INDIANA, FEBRUARY 11, 1861 

Governor Morton and Fellow-citizens of the State of 
Indiana: Most heartily do I thank you for this mag- 
nificent reception; and while I cannot take to my- 
self any share of the compliment thus paid, more 
than that which pertains to a mere instrument — 5 
an accidental instrument perhaps I should say — of 
a great cause, I yet must look upon it as a magnifi- 
cent reception, and as such most heartily do I thank 
you for it. You have been pleased to address your- 
self to me chiefly in behalf of this glorious Union in r 
which we live, in all of which you have my hearty 
sympathy, and, as far as may be within my power, 
will have, one and inseparably, my hearty cooperation. 

119 



120 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

While I do not expect, upon this occasion, or until I 
get to Washington, to attempt any lengthy speech, I 
will only say that to the salvation of the Union there 
needs but one single thing, the hearts of a people like 
5 yours. When the people rise in mass in behalf of the 
Union and the liberties of this country, truly may it 
be said, "The gates of hell cannot prevail against 
them." In all trying positions in which I shall be 
placed, and doubtless I shall be placed in many such, 

i° my reliance will be upon you and the people of the 
United States; and I wish you to remember, now and 
forever, that it is your business, and not mine; that 
if the union of these States and the liberties of this 
people shall be lost, it is but little to any one man of 

15 fifty-two years of age, but a great deal to the thirty 
millions of people who inhabit these United States, 
and to their posterity in all coming time. It is your 
business to rise up and perserve the Union and liberty 
for yourselves, and not for me. I appeal to you again 

20 to constantly bear in mind that not with politicians, 
not with Presidents, not with office-seekers, but 
with you, is the question : Shall the Union and shall 
the liberties of this country be preserved to the 
latest generations ? 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 121 

ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW YORK, AT 
ALBANY, N.Y., FEBRUARY 18, 1861. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the General As- 
sembly of the State of New York : It is with feelings of 
great diffidence, and, I may say, with feelings of awe, 
perhaps greater than I have recently experienced, 
that I meet you here in this place. The history of 5 
this great State, the renown of those great men who 
have stood here, and have spoken here, and been 
heard here, all crowd around my fancy, and incline 
me to shrink from any attempt to address you. Yet 
I have some confidence given me by the generous io 
manner in which you have invited me, and by the 
still more generous manner in which you have 
received me, to speak further. You have invited and 
received me without distinction of party. I cannot 
for a moment suppose that this has been done in any is 
considerable degree with reference to my personal 
services, but that it is done, in so far. as I am regarded, 
at this time, as the representative of the majesty of 
this great nation. I doubt not this is the truth, and 
the whole truth, of the case, and this is as it should be. 20 
It is more gratifying to me that this reception has 



122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

been given to me as the elected representative of a 
free people, than it could possibly be if tendered 
merely as an evidence of devotion to me, or to 
any one man personally. 
5 And now I think it were more fitting that I should 
close these hasty remarks. It is true that, while I 
hold myself, without mock modesty, the humblest 
of all individuals that have ever been elevated to the 
presidency, I have a more difficult task to perform 

10 than any one of them. 

You have generously tendered me the support — 
the united support — of the great Empire State. 
For this, in behalf of the nation — in behalf of the 
present and future of the nation — in behalf of civil 

J 5 and religious liberty for all time to come, most grate- 
fully do I thank you. I do not propose to enter into 
an explanation of any particular line of policy, as to 
our present difficulties, to be adopted by the incom- 
ing administration. I deem it just to you, to myself, 

20 to all, that I should see everything, that I should 
hear everything, that I should have every light that 
can be brought within my reach, in order that, when 
I do speak, I shall have enjoyed every opportunity 
to take correct and true ground; and for this 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 123 

reason I do not propose to speak at this time of the 
policy of the government. But when the time 
comes, I shall speak, as well as I am able, for the 
good of the present and future of this country — for 
the good both of the North and of the South — for 5 
the good of the one and the other, and of all sec- 
tions of the country. In the meantime, if we have 
patience, if we restrain ourselves, if we allow our- 
selves not to run off in a passion, I still have con- 
fidence that the Almighty, the Maker of the uni- lo 
verse, will, through the instrumentality of this great 
and intelligent people, bring us through this as he 
has through all the other difficulties of our country. 
Relying on this, I again thank you for this generous 
reception. x 5 

ADDRESS TO THE SENATE OF NEW JERSEY AT 
TRENTON, FEBRUARY 21, 1861. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Senate of the 
State of New Jersey : I am very grateful to you for the 
honorable reception of which I have been the object. 
I cannot but remember the place that New Jersey 
holds in our early history. In the Revolutionary 2 o 



124 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

struggle few of the States among the Old Thirteen 
had more of the battle-fields of the country within 
their limits than New Jersey. May I be pardoned if, 
upon this occasion, I mention that away back in my 

5 childhood, the earliest days of my being able to read, 
I got hold of a small book, such a one as few of the 
younger members have ever seen — Weems's "Life 
of Washington." I remember all the accounts 
there given of the battle-fields and struggles for the 

10 liberties of the country, and none^fixed themselves 
upon my imagination so deeply as the struggle here 
at Trenton, New Jersey. The crossing of the river, 
the contest with the Hessians, the great hardships 
endured at that time, all fixed themselves on my 

15 memory more than any single Revolutionary event; 
and you all know, for you have all been boys, how 
these early impressions last longer than any others. 
I recollect thinking then, boy even though I was, that 
there must have been something more than common 

20 that these men struggled for. I am exceedingly 
anxious that that thing — *- that something even 
more than national independence; that something 
that held out a great promise to all the people of the 
world to all time to come — I am exceedingly anxious 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



125 



that this Union, the Constitution, and the liberties 
of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance 
with the original idea for which that struggle was 
made, and I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be 
a humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, 5 
and of this, his almost chosen people, for perpetuat- 
ing the object of that great struggle. You give me 
this reception, as I understand, without distinction 
of party. I learn that this body is composed of a 
majority of gentlemen who, in the exercise of their 10 
best judgment in the choice of a chief magistrate, 
did not think I was the man. I understand, never- 
theless, that they come forward here to greet me as 
the constitutionally elected President of the United 
States — as citizens of the United States to meet i S 
the man who, for the time being, is the representative 
of the majesty of the nation — united by the single 
purpose to perpetuate the Constitution, the Union, 
and the liberties of the people. As such, I accept this 
reception more gratefully than I could do did lac 
believe it were tendered to me as an individual. 



XIII 

ADDRESSES AT INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILA- 
DELPHIA, AND AT WASHINGTON, D.C. 

ADDRESS IN INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA, 
FEBRUARY 22, 1861. 

Mr. Cuyler: I am filled with deep emotion at 
finding myself standing in this place, where were col- 
lected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devo- 
tion to principle, from which sprang the institu- 

5 tions under which we live. You have kindly sug- 
gested to me that in my hands is the task of restor- 
ing peace to our distracted country. I can say in 
return, sir, that all the political sentiments I enter- 
tain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to 

to draw them, from the sentiments which originated 
in and were given to the world from this hall. I 
have never had a feeling, politically, that did not 
spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declara- 

126 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 127 

tion of Independence. I have often pondered over 
the dangers which were incurred by the men who 
assembled here and framed and adopted that 
Declaration. I have pondered over the toils that 
were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army 5 
who achieved that independence. I have often in- 
quired of myself what great principle or idea it was 
that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was 
not the mere matter of separation of the colonies 
from the motherland, but that sentiment in the 10 
Declaration of Independence which gave liberty not 
alone to the people of this country, but hope to all 
the world, for all future time. It was that which 
gave promise that in due time the weights would be 
lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all 15 
should have an equal chance. This is the senti- 
ment embodied in the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. Now, my friends, can this country be 
saved on that basis ? If it can I will consider 
myself one of the happiest men in the world if 1 20 
can help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon 
that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this 
country cannot be saved without giving up that 
principle, I was about to say I would rather be 



128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

assassinated on this spot than surrender it. Now, 
in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is 
no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity 
for it. I am not in favor of such a course; and I 

5 may say in advance that there will be no bloodshed 
unless it is forced upon the government. The govern- 
ment will not use force, unless force is used against it. 
My friends, this is wholly an unprepared speech. 
I did not expect to be called on to say a word when 

10 1 came here. I supposed I was merely to do some- 
thing toward raising a flag. I may, therefore, have 
said something indiscreet. [Cries of "No, no."] 
But I have said nothing but what I am willing to live 
by, and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to 

15 die by. 

REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF WASHINGTON, D.C., 
FEBRUARY 27, 1861. 

Mr. Mayor : I thank you, and through you 
the municipal authorities of this city who accom- 
pany you, for this welcome. And as it is the first 
time in my life, since the present phase of politics 
20 has presented itself in this country, that I have 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 129 

said anything publicly within a region of country 
where the institution of slavery exists, I will take 
this occasion to say that I think very much of the 
ill-feeling that has existed and still exists between 
the people in the section from which I came ands 
the people here, is dependent upon a misunder- 
standing of one another. I therefore avail myself 
of this opportunity to assure you, Mr. Mayor, 
and all the gentlemen present, that I have not 
now, and never have had, any other than as kindly 10 
feelings toward you as to the people of my own 
section. I have not now and never have had any 
disposition to treat you in any respect otherwise 
than as my own neighbors. I have not now any 
purpose to withhold from you any of the benefits 15 
of the Constitution under any circumstances, 
that I would not feel myself constrained to with- 
hold from my own neighbors; and I hope, in a 
word, that when we become better acquainted, — 
and I say it with great confidence, — we shall like 20 
each other the more. . . . 



XIV 

FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS, MARCH 4, 1861. 

Fellow-citizens of the United States: In compliance 
with a custom as old as the government itself, I 
appear before you to address you briefly, and to take 
in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitu- 

5 tion of the United States to be taken by the Presi- 
dent " before he enters on the execution of his office. " 
I do not consider it necessary at present for me to 
discuss those matters of administration about which 
there is no special anxiety or excitement. 

[o Apprehension seems to exist among the people of 
the Southern States that by the accession of a Re- 
publican administration their property and their 
peace and personal security are to be endangered. 
There has never been any reasonable cause for such 

15 apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to 
the contrary has all the while existed and been open 
to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the pub- 
lished speeches of him who now addresses you. I do 

130 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 131 

but quote from one of those speeches when I declare 
that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to 
interfere with the institution of slavery in the States 
where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do 
so, and I have no inclination to do so." Those who 5 
nominated and elected me did so with full knowl- 
edge that I had made this and many similar dec- 
larations and never recanted them. And, more than 
this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, 
and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and 1° 
emphatic resolution which I now read: 

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of 
the rights of the States, and especially the right 
of each State to order and control its own domestic 
institutions according to its own judgment exclu- 15 
sively, is essential to that balance of power on 
which the perfection and endurance of our politi- 
cal fabric depend, and we denounce the lawless 
invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or 
Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among 20 
the gravest of crimes. 

I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, 
I only press upon the public attention the most con- 
clusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that 2 5 



132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the property, peace, and security of no section are to 
be in any wise endangered by the now incoming ad- 
ministration. I add, too, that all the protection 
which, consistently with the Constitution and the 

5 laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the 
States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause 
— as cheerfully to one section as to another. 

There is much controversy about the delivering 
up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause 

10 I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution 
as any other of its provisions : — 

No person held to service or labor in one State, 
under the laws thereof, escaping into another 
shall, in consequence of any law or regulation 
x 5 therein, be discharged from such service or labor, 

but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to 
whom such service or labor may be due. 

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was 
intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of 
20 what we call fugitive slaves ; and the intention of the 
lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear 
their support to the whole Constitution — to this pro- 
vision as much as to any other. To the proposition, 
then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 133 

of this clause "shall be delivered up, " their oaths are 
unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in 
good temper, could they not with nearly equal una- 
nimity frame and pass a law by means of which to 
keep good that unanimous oath ? 5 

There is some difference of opinion whether this 
clause should be enforced by national or by State 
authority; but surely that difference is not a very 
material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it 
can be of but little consequence to him or to others 10 
by which authority it is done. And should any one 
in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept 
on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it 
shall be kept ? 

Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not 15 
all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and 
humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free 
man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave ? And 
might it not be well at the same time to provide by 
law for the enforcement of that clause in the Consti- 20 
tution which guarantees that "the citizens of each 
State shall be entitled to all privileges and immu- 
nities of citizens in the several States?" 

I take the official oath to-day with no mental 



134 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

reservations, and with no purpose to construe the 
Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules. 
And while I do not choose now to specify particular 
acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do sug- 

5 gest that it will be much safer for all, both in official 
and private stations, to conform to and abide by all 
those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate 
any of them, trusting to find impunity in having 
them held to be unconstitutional. 

10 It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration 
of a President under our National Constitution. 
During that period fifteen different and greatly 
distinguished citizens have, in succession, admin- 
istered the executive branch of the government. 

i 5 They have conducted it through many perils, and 
generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope 
of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for a 
brief constitutional term of four years under great 
and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal 

20 Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably 
attempted. 

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and 
of the Constitution, the Union of these States is per- 
petual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 135 

the fundamental law of all national governments. 
It is safe to assert that no government proper ever 
had a provision in its organic law for its own ter- 
mination. Continue to execute all the express 
provisions of our National Constitution, and the 5 
Union will endure forever — it being impossible to 
destroy it except by some action not provided for in 
the instrument itself. 

Again, if the United States be not a government 
proper, but an association of States in the nature of 10 
contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably 
unmade by less than all the parties who made it ? 
One party to a contract may violate it — break it, 
so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully 
rescind it? is 

Descending from these general principles, we 
find the proposition that, in legal contemplation the 
Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the 
Union itself. The Union is much older than the 
Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles 20 
of Association in 1774. It was matured and con- 
tinued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. 
It was further matured, and the faith of all the then 
thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that 



136 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confeder- 
ation in 1778. And, finally, in 1787 one of the de- 
clared objects for ordaining and establishing the 
Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union. " 

s But if the destruction of the Union by one or by 
a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the 
Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, 
having lost the vital element of perpetuity. 

It follows from these views that no State upon its 

io own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union ; 
that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally 
void; and that acts of violence, within any State or 
States, against the authority of the United States, 
are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to 

J 5 circumstances. 

I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitu- 
tion and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the 
extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Consti- 
tution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws 

20 of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. 
Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my 
part; and I shall perform it so far as practicable, 
unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall 
withhold the requisite means, or in some authori- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 137 

tative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will 
not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared 
purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally 
defend and maintain itself. 

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or 5 
violence ; and there shall be none, unless it be forced 
upon the national authority. The power confided 
to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the 
property and places belonging to the government, 
and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond 10 
what may be necessary for these objects, there will 
be no invasion, no using of force against or among the 
people anywhere. Where hostility to the United 
States, in any interior locamty, shall be so great and 
universal as to prevent competent resident citizens 15 
from holding the Federal offices, there will be no 
attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the 
people for that object. While the strict legal right 
may exist in the government to enforce the exercise 
of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so 20 
irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal, that 
I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of 
such offices. 

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be fur- 



138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

nished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, 
the people everywhere shall have that sense of per- 
fect security which is most favorable to calm thought 
and reflection. The course here indicated will be 
5 followed unless current events and experience shall 
show a modification or change to be proper, and in 
every case and exigency my best discretion will be 
exercised according to circumstances actually exist- 
ing, and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution 

10 of the national troubles and the restoration of frater- 
nal sympathies and affections. 

That there are persons in one section or another 
who seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are 
glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor 

15 deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to 
them. To those, however, who really love the Union 
may I not speak ? 

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the 
destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, 

20 its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to 
ascertain precisely why we do it ? Will you hazard 
so desperate a step while there is any possibility that 
any portion of the ills you fly from have no real ex- 
istence ? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 139 

are greater than all the real ones you fly from — 
will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake ? 
All profess to be content in the Union if all constitu- 
tional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, 
that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, 5 
has been denied ? I think not. Happily the human 
mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the 
audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a 
single instance in which a plainly written provision 
of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the 10 
mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a 
minority of any clearly written constitutional right, 
it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution 
— certainly would if such a right were a vital one. 
But such is not our case. All 1uhe vital rights of minor- 15 
ities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them 
by affirmations and negations, guarantees, and pro- 
hibitions, in the Constitution, that controversies 
never arise concerning them. But no organic law can 
ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable 20 
to every question which may occur in practical ad- 
ministration. No foresight can anticipate, nor any 
document of reasonable length contain, express 
provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugi- 



140 ABB AH AM LINCOLN 

tives from labor be surrendered by national or by 
State authority? The Constitution does not ex- 
pressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the 
Territories ? The Constitution does not expressly 

5 say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Terri- 
tories ? The Constitution does not expressly say. 

From questions of this class spring all our consti- 
tutional controversies, and we divide upon them 
into majorities and minorities. If the minority will 

ionot acquiesce, the majority must or the government 
must cease. There is no other alternative; for con- 
tinuing the government is acquiescence on one side 
or the other. 

If a minority in such case will secede rather than 

15 acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn 
will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their 
own will secede from them whenever a majority re- 
fuses to be controlled by such minority. For in- 
stance, why may not any portion of a new conf eder- 

20 acy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, 
precisely as portions of the present Union now claim 
to secede from it ? All who cherish disunion senti- 
ments are now being educated to the exact temper 
of doing this. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 141 

Is there such perfect identity of interests among 
the States to compose a new Union, as to produce 
harmony only, and prevent renewed secession ? 

Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence 
of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by consti- 5 
tutional checks and limitations, and always changing 
easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions 
and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free 
people. Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly 
to anarchy or despotism. Unanimity is impossible; 10 
the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, 
is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the major- 
ity principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is 
all that is left. 

I do not forget the position assumed by some, that 15 
constitutional questions are to be decided by the 
Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions 
must be binding, in any case, upon the parties to a 
suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also 
entitled to a very high respect and consideration in 2C 
all parallel cases by all other departments of the 
government. And while it is obviously possible that 
such decision may be erroneous in any given case, 
Still the evil effeot following it, being limited to that 



142 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

• particular case, with the chance that it may be over- 
ruled and never become a precedent for other cases, 
can better be borne than could the evils of a different 
practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must 

5 confess that if the policy of the government, upon 
vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be 
irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, 
the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation 
between parties in personal actions, the people will 

10 have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that 
extent practically resigned their government into the 
hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this 
view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is 
a duty from which they may not shrink to decide 

15 cases properly brought before them, and it is no 
fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to 
political purposes. 

One section of our country believes slavery is right, 
and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is 

20 wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the 
only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause 
of the Constitution, and the law for the suppression 
of the foreign slave-trade, are each as well enforced, 
perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 143 

where the moral sense of the people imperfectly sup- 
ports the law itself. The great body of the people 
abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a 
few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be per- 
fectly cured; and it would be worse in both cases after 5 
the separation of the sections than before. The for- 
eign slave-trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would 
be ultimately revived, without restriction, in one 
section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially sur- 
rendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other. 10 

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We 
cannot remove our respective sections from each 
other, nor build an impassable wall between them. 
A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of 
the presence and beyond the reach of each other; l5 
but the different parts of our country cannot do this. 
They cannot but remain face to face ; and inter- 
course, either amicable or hostile, must continue 
between them. Is it possible, then, to make that 
intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory 20 
after separation than before ? Can aliens make 
treaties easier than friends can make laws ? Can 
treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens 
than laws can among friends ? Suppose you go to 



144 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much 
loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease 
fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of 
intercourse are again upon you. 
5 This country, with its institutions, belongs to the 
people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow 
weary of the existing government, they can exercise 
their constitutional right of amending it, or their 
revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow 

ioit. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many 
worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having 
the National Constitution amended. While I 
make no recommendation of amendments, I fully 
recognize the rightful authority of the people over 

15 the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the 
modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I 
should, under existing circumstances, favor rather 
than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the 
people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to 

20 me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it 
allows amendments to originate with the people 
themselves, instead of only permitting them to take 
or reject propositions originated by others not espe- 
cially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 145 

precisely such as they would wish to either accept or 
refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the 
Constitution — which amendment, however, I have 
not seen — has passed Congress, to the effect that the 
Federal Government shall never interfere with the 5 
domestic institutions of the States, including that of 
persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of 
what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to 
speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, 
holding such a provision to now be applied constitu- 10 
tional law, I have no objection to its being made 
express and irrevocable. 

The chief magistrate derives all his authority from 
the people, and they have conferred none upon him 
to fix terms for the separation of the States. The 15 
people themselves can do this also if they choose ; but 
the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. 
His duty is to administer the present government, as 
it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired 
by him, to his successor. 20 

Why should there not be a patient confidence in 
the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any 
better or equal hope in the world ? In our present 
differences is either party without faith of being in 



146 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the right ? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with 
His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the 
North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that 
justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this 
s great tribunal of the American people. 

By the frame of the government under which 
we live, this same people have wisely given their 
public servants but little power for mischief; and 
have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return 

10 of that little to their own hands at very short in- 
tervals. While the people retain their virtue and 
vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of 
wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the 
government in the short space of four years. 

I5 My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and 
well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can 
be lost by taking time. If there be an obj ect to hurry 
any of you in hot haste to a step which you would 
never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated 

20 by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated 
by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still 
have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the 
sensitive point, the laws of your own framing 
under it; while the new administration will have no 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 147 

immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it 
were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold 
the right side in the dispute, there still is no sin- 
gle good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, 
patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him 5 
who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are 
still competent to adjust in the best way all our 
present difficulty. 

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, 
and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 10 
The government will not assail you. You can have 
no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. 
You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the 
government, while I shall have the most solemn one 
to " preserve, protect, and defend it." 15 

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but 
friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion 
may have strained, it must not break our bonds of 
affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching 
from every battle-field and patriot grave to every 20 
living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, 
will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again 
touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels 
of our nature. 



XV 

LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY 

Executive Mansion, Washington, August 22, 1862. 

Hon. Horace Greeley: 

Dear Sir: I have just read yours of the 19th, 
addressed to myself through the New York Trib- 
une. If there be in it any statements or assump- 
5 tions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, 
I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there 
be in it any inferences which I may believe to be 
falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue against 
them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient 
io and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an 
old friend whose heart I have always supposed to 
be right. 

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as 
you say, I have not meant to leave any one in 
15 doubt. 

I would save the Union. I would save it the 
148 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 149 

shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner 
the national authority can be restored, the nearer 
the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there 
be those who would not save the Union unless they 
could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree 5 
with them. If there be those who would not save 
the. Union unless they could at the same time destroy 
slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount 
object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is 
not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could 10 
save the Union without freeing any slave, I would 
do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, 
I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing 
some and leaving others alone, I would also do 
that. What I do about slavery and the colored 15 
race, I do because I believe it helps to save the 
Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do 
not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall 
do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing 
hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever 1 20 
shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall 
try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I 
shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear 
to be true views. 



150 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

I have here stated my purpose according to 
my view of official duty; and I intend no modi- 
fication of my oft-expressed personal wish that all 
men everywhere could be free. 

Yours, 

A. Lincoln. 



XVI 

REPLY TO THE CHICAGO COMMITTEE OF UNITED 
RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS, WHICH HAD 
URGED THE PRESIDENT TO ISSUE A PROCLA- 
MATION OF EMANCIPATION, SEPTEMBER 13, 1862. 

The subject presented in the memorial is one 
upon which I have thought much for weeks past, 
and I may even say for months. I am approached 
with the most opposite opinions and advice, and 
that by religious men who are equally certain that 5 
they represent the divine will. I am sure that 
either the one or the other class is mistaken in that 
belief, and perhaps in some respects both. I hope it 
will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is 
probable that God would reveal His will to others on 10 
a point so connected with my duty, it might be sup- 
posed He would reveal it directly to me; for, unless 
I am more deceived in myself than I often am, it 
is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence 
in this matter. And if I can learn what it is, 1 15 
will do it. These are not, however, the days of 
miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I am 

151 



152 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

not to expect a direct revelation. I must study the 

plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is 

possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right. 

The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree. 

5 For instance, the other day four gentlemen of stand- 
ing and intelligence from New York called as a 
delegation on business connected with the war; 
but, before leaving, two of them earnestly beset me 
to proclaim general emancipation ; upon which the 

10 other two at once attacked them. You know also 
that the last session of Congress had a decided 
majority of antislavery men, yet they could not 
unite on this policy. And the same is true of the 
religious people. Why, the rebel soldiers are pray- 

15 ing with a great deal more earnestness, I fear, than 
our own troops, and expecting God to favor their 
side; for one of our soldiers who had been taken 
prisoner told Senator Wilson a few days since that 
he met with nothing so discouraging as the evident 

20 sincerity of those he was among in their prayers. 
But we will talk over the merits of the case. 

What good would a proclamation of emancipation 
from me do, especially as we are now situated ? 
I do not want to issue a document that the whole 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 153 

world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like 
the Pope's bull against the comet. Would my word 
free the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Con- 
stitution in the rebel States ? Is there a single 
court, or magistrate, or individual that would be 5 
influenced by it there ? And what reason is there 
to think it would have any greater effect upon the 
slaves than the late law of Congress, which I ap- 
proved, and which offers protection and freedom to 
the slaves of rebel masters who come within our 10 
lines ? Yet I cannot learn that that law has caused 
a single slave to come over to us. And suppose 
they could be induced by a proclamation of freedom 
from me to throw themselves upon us, what should 
we do with them ? How can we feed and care for 15 
such a multitude ? General Butler wrote me a 
few days since that he was issuing more rations to 
the slaves who have rushed to him than to all the 
white troops under his command. They eat, and 
that is all; though it is true General Butler is feed- 20 
ing the whites also by the thousand, for it nearly 
amounts to a famine there. If, now, the pressure 
of the war should call off our forces from New Or- 
leans to defend some other point, what is to prevent 



154 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

the masters from reducing the blacks to slavery 
again ? For I am told that whenever the rebels 
take any black prisoners, free or slave, they imme- 
diately auction them off. They did so with those 

5 they took from a boat that was aground in the 
Tennessee River a few days ago. And then I am 
very ungenerously attacked for it ! For instance, 
when, after the late battles at and near Bull Run, 
an expedition went out from Washington under a flag 

10 of truce to bury the dead and bring in the wounded, 
and the rebels seized the blacks who went along to 
help, and sent them into slavery, Horace Greeley 
said in his paper that the government would proba- 

15 bly do nothing about it. What could I do ? 

Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible 
result of good would follow the issuing of such a 
proclamation as you desire ? Understand, I raise 
no objections against it on legal or constitutional 
grounds; for, as commander-in-chief of the army 

20 and navy, in time of war I suppose I have a right 
to take any measure which may best subdue the 
enemy; nor do I urge objections of a moral nature, 
in view of possible consequences of insurrection 
and massacre at the South. I view this matter 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 155 

as a practical war measure, to be decided on accord- 
ing to the advantages or disadvantages it may 
offer to the suppression of the rebellion. 

I admit that slavery is the root of the rebellion, 
or at least its sine qua non. The ambition of poli- 5 
ticians may have instigated them to act, but they 
would have been impotent without slavery as their 
instrument. I will also concede that emancipa- 
tion would help us in Europe, and convince them 
that we are incited by something more than ambi- «> 
tion. I grant, further, that it would help somewhat 
at the North, though not so much, I fear, as you and 
those you represent imagine. Still, some additional 
strength would be added in that way to the war; 
and then, unquestionably, it would weaken the 15 
rebels by drawing off their laborers, which is of 
great importance; but I am not so sure we could do 
much with the blacks. If we were to arm them, 
I fear that in a few weeks the arms would be in the 
hands of the rebels; and, indeed, thus far we have 20 
not had arms enough to equip our white troops. 
I will mention another thing, though it meet only 
your scorn and contempt. There are fifty thou- 
sand bayonets in the Union armies from the border 



156 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

slave States. It would be a serious matter if, in 
consequence of a proclamation such as you desire, 
they should go over to the rebels. I do not think 
they all would — not so many, indeed, as a year 

5 ago, or as six months ago — not so many to-day as 
yesterday. Every day increases their Union feeling. 
They are also getting their pride enlisted, and want 
to beat the rebels. Let me say one thing more: 
I think you should admit that we already have an 

io important principle to rally and unite the people, 
in the fact that constitutional government is at 
stake. This is a fundamental idea going down 
about as deep as anything. 

Do not misunderstand me because I have men- 

15 tioned these objections. They indicate the difficul- 
ties that have thus far prevented my action in some 
such way as you desire. I have not decided against 
a proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but hold 
the matter under advisement; and I can assure you 

20 that the subject is on my mind, by day and night, 
more than any other. Whatever shall appear to be 
God's will, I will do. I trust that in the freedom 
with which I have canvassed your Views I have not 
in any respect injured your feelings. 



XVII 

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION, JANU- 
ARY 1, 1863. 

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of Sep- 
tember, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight 
hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued 
by the President of the United States, containing, 
among other things, the following, to wit : — 5 

"That on the first day of January, in the year of 
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty- 
three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or 
designated part of a State, the people whereof shall 
then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be io 
then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Ex- 
ecutive Government of the United States, including 
the military and naval authority thereof, will recog- 
nize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and 
will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any 15 
of them, in any efforts they may make for their 
actual freedom. 

157 



158 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

"That the Executive will, on the first day of Janu- 
ary aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States 
and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof 
respectively shall then be in rebellion against the 

5 United States; and the fact that any State, or the 
people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith rep- 
resented in the Congress of the United States by 
members chosen thereto at elections wherein a ma- 
jority of the qualified voters of such State shall have 

J ° participated, shall in the absence of strong counter- 
vailing testimony be deemed conclusive evidence 
that such State and the people thereof are not then 
in rebellion against the United States." 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of 
15 \he United States, by virtue of the power in me vested 
as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the 
United States, in time of actual armed rebellion 
against the authority and government of the United 
States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for 
20 suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of 
January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight 
hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with 
my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 159 

period of 100 days from the day first above men- 
tioned, order and designate as the States and parts 
of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, 
are this day in rebellion against the United States, 
the following, to wit : — 5 

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes 
of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. 
Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre 
Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, 
including the city of New Orleans) , Mississippi, Ala- 10 
bama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Caro- 
lina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties 
designated as West Virginia, and also the counties 
of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, 
York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities 15 
of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted 
parts are for the present left precisely as if this 
proclamation were not issued. 

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose 
aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held 20 
as slaves within said designated States and parts of 
States are, and henceforward shall be, free ; and that 
the executive government of the United States, in- 
cluding the military and naval authorities thereof, 



160 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

will recognize and maintain the freedom of said 
persons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to 
be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary 
5 self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all 
cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reason- 
able wages. 

And I further declare and make known that such 
persons of suitable condition will be received into the 
10 armed service of the United States to garrison forts, 
positions, stations, and other places, and to man ves- 
sels of all sorts in said service. 

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act 
of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon mili- 
15 tary necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of 
mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. 



XVIII 

REPLY TO AN ADDRESS FROM THE WORKING- 
MEN OF MANCHESTER, ENGLAND, DATED JANU- 
ARY 19, 1863. 

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of 
the address and resolutions which you sent me on 
the eve of the New Year. When I came, on the 
4th of March, 1861, through a free and con- 
stitutional election, to preside in the governments 
of the United States, the country was found at 
the verge of civil war. Whatever might have 
been the cause, or whosesoever the fault, one duty 
paramount to all others was before me; namely, 
to maintain and preserve at once the Constitution io 
and the integrity of the Federal Republic. A con- 
scientious purpose to perform this duty is the key to 
all the measures of administration which have been, 
and to all which will hereafter be, pursued. Under 
our frame of government and by my official oath, 15 
I could not depart from this purpose if I would. It 
M 161 



162 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

is not always in the power of governments to enlarge 
or restrict the scope of moral results which follow the 
policies that they may deem it necessary for the 
public safety from time to time to adopt. 
5 I have understood well that the duty of self- 
preservation rests solely with the American people ; 
but I have at the same time been aware that favor 
or disfavor of foreign nations might have a material 
influence in enlarging or prolonging the struggle 

10 with disloyal men in which the country is engaged. 
A fair examination of history has served to authorize 
a belief that the past actions and. influences of the 
United States were generally regarded as having been 
beneficial toward mankind. I have therefore reck- 

15 oned upon the forbearance of nations. Circum- 
stances, to some of which you kindly allude, induce 
me especially to expect that if justice and good faith 
should be practised by the United States, they would 
encounter no hostile influence on the part of Great 

20 Britain. It is now a pleasant duty to acknowledge 
the demonstration you have given of your desire 
that a spirit of amity and peace toward this country 
may prevail in the councils of your queen, who is 
respected and esteemed in your own country only 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 163 

more than she is by the kindred nation which has its 
home on this side of the Atlantic. 

I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which the 
working-men at Manchester, and in all Europe, are 
called to endure in this crisis. It has been often 5 
and studiously represented that the attempt to over- 
throw this government, which was built upon the 
foundation of human rights, and to substitute for it 
one which should rest exclusively on the basis of 
human slavery, was likely to obtain the favor of 10 
Europe. Through the action of our disloyal citizens, 
the working-men of Europe have been subjected to 
severe trials, for the purpose of forcing their sanc- 
tion to that attempt. Under the circumstances, I 
cannot but regard your decisive utterances upon the 15 
question as an instance of sublime Christian heroism, 
which has not been surpassed in any age or in any 
country. It is indeed an energetic and reinspiring 
assurance of the inherent power of truth, and of the 
ultimate and universal triumph of justice, humanity, 20 
and freedom. I do not doubt that the sentiments 
you have expressed will be sustained by your great 
nation; and, on the other hand, I have no hesita- 
tion in assuring you that they will excite admira- 



164 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tion, esteem, and the most reciprocal feelings of 
friendship among the American people. I hail this 
interchange of sentiment, therefore, as an augury 
that whatever else may happen, whatever misfortune 
5 may befall your country or my own, the peace and 
friendship which now exist between the two nations 
will be, as it shall be my desire to make them, 
perpetual. 



XIX 

REPLY TO J. C. CONKLING IN RESPONSE TO AN 
INVITATION TO ADDRESS A MASS-MEETING AT 
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, DATED AUGUST 26, 1863. 

My dear Sir: Your letter inviting me to attend a 
mass-meeting of unconditional Union men, to be 
held at the capital of Illinois on the third day of 
September, has been received. It would be very 
agreeable to me to thus meet my old friends at my 5 
own home, but I cannot just now be absent from 
here so long as a visit there would require. 

The meeting is to be of all those who maintain 
unconditional devotion to the Union; and I am 
sure my old political friends will thank me for ten- 10 
dering, as I do, the nation's gratitude to those and 
other noble men whom no partisan malice or parti- 
san hope can make false to the nation's life. 

There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To 
such I would say: You desire peace, and you blame 15 
me that we do not have it. But how can we attain 

165 



166 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

it ? There are but three conceivable ways. First, 
to suppress the rebellion by force of arms. This 
I am trying to do. Are you for it ? If you are, so far 
we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second way 

5 is to give up the Union. I am against this. Are you 
for it ? If you are, you should say so plainly. If 
you are not for force, nor yet for dissolution, there 
only remains some imaginable compromise. I do 
not believe any compromise embracing the main- 

10 tenance of the Union is now possible. All I learn 
leads to a directly opposite belief. The strength 
of the rebellion is its military, its army. That army 
dominates all the country and all the people within 
its range. Any offer of terms made by any man or 

15 men within that range, in opposition to that army, 

is simply nothing for the present, because such man 

or men have no power whatever to enforce their 

side of a compromise, if one were made with them. 

To illustrate: Suppose refugees from the South 

20 and peace men of the North get together in con- 
vention, and frame and proclaim a compromise 
embracing a restoration of the Union. In what 
way can that compromise be used to keep Lee's 
army out of Pennsylvania? Meade's army can 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 167 

keep Lee's out of Pennsylvania, and, I think, can 
ultimately drive it out of existence. But no paper 
compromise, to which the controllers of Lee's 
army are not agreed, can at all affect that army. 
In an effort at such compromise we should waste 5 
time which the enemy would improve to our dis- 
advantage; and that would be all. A compro- 
mise, to be effective, must be made either with 
those who control the rebel army, or with the 
people first liberated from the domination of that 10 
army by the success of our own army. Now, 
allow me to assure you that no word or intima- 
tion from that rebel army, or from any of the men 
controlling it, in relation to any peace compro- 
mise, has ever come to my knowledge or belief. 15 
All charges and insinuations to the contrary are 
deceptive and groundless. And I promise you 
that if any such proposition shall hereafter come, 
it shall not be rejected and kept a secret from 
you. I freely acknowledge myself the servant 20 
of the people, according to the bond of service, 
— the United States Constitution, — and that, as 
such, I am responsible to them. 

But to be plain. You are dissatisfied with me 



168 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

about the negro. Quite likely there is a differ- 
ence of opinion between you and myself upon that 
subject. I certainly wish that all men could be 
free, while I suppose you do not. Yet I have 

s neither adopted nor proposed any measure which 
is not consistent with even your views, provided 
you are for the Union. I suggested compensated 
emancipation, to which you replied, you wished 
not to be taxed to buy negroes. But I had not 

10 asked you to be taxed to buy negroes, except in 
such way as to save you from greater taxation to 
save the Union exclusively by other means. 

You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and 
perhaps would have it retracted. You say it is 

15 unconstitutional. I think differently. I think the 
Constitution invests its commander-in-chief with the 
law of war in time of war. The most that can be said 
— if so much — is that slaves are property. Is there, 
has there ever been, any question that, by the law 

20 of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may 
be taken when needed ? And is it not needed when- 
ever taking it helps us or hurts the enemy ? Armies 
the world over destroy enemies' property when they 
cannot use it, and even destroy their own to keep 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 169 

it from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in 
their power to help themselves or hurt the enemy, 
except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel. 
Among the exceptions are the massacre of vanquished 
foes and non-combatants, male and female. 5 

But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or 
is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retrac- 
tion. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted any more 
than the dead can be brought to life. Some of 
you profess to think its retraction would operate 10 
favorably for the Union. Why better after the re- 
traction than before the issue? There was more 
than a year and a half of trial to suppress the 
rebellion before the proclamation issued, the last one 
hundred days of which passed under an explicit 15 
notice that it was coming, unless averted by those 
in revolt returning to their allegiance. The war has 
certainly progressed as favorably for us since the 
issue of the proclamation as before. I know, as 
fully as one can know the opinions of others, that 20 
some of the commanders of our armies in the field 
who have given us our most important successes, 
believe the emancipation policy and the use of 
colored troops constitute the heaviest blow yet 



170 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

dealt to the rebellion, and that at least one of these 
important successes could not have been achieved 
when it was but for the aid of black soldiers. Among 
the commanders holding these views are some who 

5 have never had any affinity with what is called 
Abolitionism or with Republican party politics, but 
who hold them purely as military opinions. I sub- 
mit these opinions as being entitled to some weight 
against the objections often urged, that emancipa- 

iotion and arming the blacks are unwise as military 
measures, and were not adopted as such in good 
faith. 

You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some 
of them seem willing to fight for you; but no matter. 

15 Fight you, then, exclusively to save the Union. I 
issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in 
saving the Union. Whenever you shall have con- 
quered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge 
you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time 

20 then for you to declare you will not fight to free 
negroes. 

I thought that in your struggle for the Union, 
to whatever extent the negroes should cease help- 
ing the enemy, to that extent it weakened the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 111 

enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think 
differently? I thought that whatever negroes 
could be got to do as soldiers leaves just so much 
less for white soldiers to do in saving the Union. 
Does it appear otherwise to you ? But negroes, 5 
like other people, act upon motives. Why should 
they do anything for us, if we will do nothing for 
them ? If they stake their lives for us, they must 
be prompted by the strongest motive, even the 
promise of freedom. And the promise being made, 10 
must be kept. 

The signs look better. The Father of Waters 
again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the great 
Northwest for it. t Nor yet wholly to them. Three 
hundred miles up they met New England, Empire, 15 
Keystone, and Jersey hewing their way right and left. 
The sunny South, too, in more colors than one, also 
lent a hand. On the spot, their part of the history 
was jotted down in black and white. The job was a 
great nation alone, and let none be banned who bore 20 
an honorable part in it. And while those who cleared 
the great river may well be proud, even that is not 
all. It is hard to say that anything has been more 
bravely and well done than at Antietam, Murfrees- 



172 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

boro, Gettysburg, and on many fields of lesser note. 
Nor must Uncle Sam's web-feet be forgotten. At all 
the watery margins they have been present. Not 
only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid 
5 river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou, and 
wherever the ground was a little damp, they have 
been and made their tracks. Thanks to all, — for 
the great republic, for the principle it lives by and 
keeps alive, for man's vast future, — thanks to 

10 all. 

Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope 
it will come soon, and come to stay ; and so come 
as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It 
will then have been proved that among freemen there 

15 can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the 
bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure 
to lose their case and pay the cost. And then there 
will be some black men who can remember that with 
silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and 

20 well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on 
to this great consummation, while I fear there will 
be some white ones unable to forget that with 
malignant heart and deceitful speech they strove 
to hinder it. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 173 

Still, let us not be oversanguine of a speedy, 
final triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us 
diligently apply the means, never doubting that a 
just God, in His own good time, will give us the 
rightful result. 5 



XX 

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS, NOVEMBER 19, 
1863. 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers 
brought forth on this continent a new nation, con- 
ceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition 
that all men are created equal. 

5 Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing 
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and 
so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a 
great battle-field of that war. We have come to 
dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting- 

io place for those who here gave their lives that that 
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and 
proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we 
cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. 

15 The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, 
have consecrated it far above our poor power to add 
or detract. The world will little note nor long re- 
member what we say here, but it can never forget 

174 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 175 

what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, 
to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which 
they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad- 
vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to 
the great task remaining before us — that from these 5 
honored dead we take increased devotion to that 
cause for which they gave the last full measure of 
devotion; that we here highly resolve that these 
dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, 
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom ; and ic 
that government of the people, by the people, for 
the people, shall not perish from the earth. 



XXI - 

SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS, MARCH 4, 1865. 

Fellow-countrymen: At this second appearing to 
take the oath of the presidential office, there is less 
occasion for an extended address than there was at 
the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of 

5 a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. 
Now, at the expiration of four years, during which 
public declarations have been constantly called forth 
on every point and phase of the great contest which 
still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies 

co of the nation, little that is new could be presented. 
The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly 
depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; 
and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encour- 
aging to all. With high hope for the future, no pre- 

15 diction in regard to it is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four years 
ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an im- 
pending civil war. All dreaded it — all sought to 

176 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 177 

avert it. While the inaugural address was being 
delivered from this place, devoted altogether to sav- 
ing the Union without war, insurgent agents were 
in the city seeking to destroy it without war — seek- 
ing to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by 5 
negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one 
of them would make war rather than let the nation 
survive ; and the other would accept war rather than 
let it perish. And the war came. 

One-eighth of the whole population were colored 10 
slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but 
localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves 
constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All 
knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of 
the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend 15 
this interest was the object for which the insur- 
gents would rend the Union, even by war; while 
the government claimed no right to do more than 
to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. 

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude 20 
or the duration which it has already attained. 
Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict 
might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself 
should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, 



178 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

and a result less fundamental and astounding. 
Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; 
and each invokes his aid against the other. It may 
seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just 

5 God's assistance in wringing their bread from the 
sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, 
that we be not judged. The prayers of both could 
not be answered — that of neither has been an- 
swered fully. 

10 The Almighty has his own purposes. " Woe unto 
the world because of offences ! for it must needs be 
that offences come; but woe to that man by whom 
the offence cometh." If we shall suppose that 
American slavery is one of those offences which, in the 

is providence of God, must needs come, but which, 
having continued through his appointed time, he now 
wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and 
South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by 
whom the offence came, shall we discern therein 

20 any departure from those divine attributes which the 
believers in a living God always ascribe to him? 
Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that 
this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. 
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 179 

piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years 
of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop 
of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another 
drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand 
years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments 5 
of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 

With malice toward none; with charity for all; 
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the 
right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to 
bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who i< 
shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and 
his orphan — to do all which may achieve and 
cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, 
and with all nations. 



XXII 

LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS, APRIL 11, 1865. 

We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in gladness 
of heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and Rich- 
mond, and the surrender of the principal insurgent 
army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace, 

5 whose joyous expression cannot be restrained. In 
the midst of this, however, He from whom all bless- 
ings flow must not be forgotten. A call for a national 
thanksgiving is being prepared, and will be duly 
promulgated. Nor must those whose harder part 

to gives us the cause of rejoicing be overlooked. Their 
honors must not be parcelled out with others. I my- 
self was near the front, and had the high pleasure of 
transmitting much of the good news to you; but no 
part of the honor for plan or execution is mine. To 

15 General Grant, his skilful officers and brave men, 
all belongs. The gallant navy stood ready, but was 
not in reach to take active part. 

By these recent successes the reinauguration of the 
180 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 181 

national authority — reconstruction — which has 
had a large share of thought from the first, is pressed 
much more closely upon our attention. It is fraught 
with great difficulty. Unlike a case of war between 
independent nations, there is no authorized organ for 5 
us to treat with — no one man has authority to give 
up the rebellion for any other man. We simply 
must begin with and mould from disorganized and 
discordant elements. Nor is it a small additional 
embarrassment that we, the loyal people, differ among 10 
ourselves as to the mode, manner, and measure of 
reconstruction. As a general rule, I abstain from 
reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing 
not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly 
offer an answer. In spite of this precaution, however, 15 
it comes to my knowledge that I am much censured 
for some supposed agency in setting up and seeking 
to sustain the new State government of Louisiana. 
In this I have done just so much as, and no more 
than, the public knows. In the annual message of 20 
December, 1863, and in the accompanying proclama- 
tion, I presented a plan of reconstruction, as the 
phrase goes, which I promised, if adopted by any State, 
should be acceptable to and sustained by the execu- 



182 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

tive government of the nation. I distinctly stated 
that this was not the only plan which might possibly 
be acceptable, and I also distinctly protested that 
the executive claimed no right to say when or 

5 whether members should be admitted to seats in 
Congress from such States. This plan was in advance 
submitted to the then Cabinet, and distinctly ap- 
proved by every member of it. One of them sug- 
gested that I should then and in that connection 

10 apply the Emancipation Proclamation to the there- 
tofore excepted parts of Virginia and Louisiana; 
that I should drop the suggestion about apprentice- 
ship for freed people, and that I should omit the 
protest against my own power in regard to the ad- 

15 mission of members to Congress. But even he ap- 
proved every part and parcel of the plan which has 
since been employed or touched by the action of 
Louisiana. 

The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring 

20 emancipation for the whole State, practically applies 
the proclamation to the part previously excepted. 
It does not adopt apprenticeship for freed people, 
and it is silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about 
the admission of members to Congress. So that, as 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 183 

it applies to Louisiana, every member of the Cabinet 
fully approved the plan. The message went to Con- 
gress, and I received many commendations of the 
plan, written and verbal, and not a single objection 
to it from any professed emancipationist came to my 5 
knowledge until after the news reached Washington 
that the people of Louisiana had begun to move in 
accordance with it. From about July, 1862, I had 
corresponded with different persons supposed to be 
interested [in] seeking a reconstruction of a State 10 
government for Louisiana. When the message of 
1863, with the plan before mentioned, reached New 
Orleans, General Banks wrote me that he was con- 
fident that the people, with his military cooperation, 
would reconstruct substantially on that plan. 1 15 
wrote to him and some of them to try it. They tried 
it, and the result is known. Such has been my only 
agency in setting up the Louisiana government. 

As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before 
stated. But as bad promises are better broken than 20 
kept, I shall treat this as a bad promise, and break 
it whenever I shall be convinced that keeping it is 
adverse to the public interest; but I have not yet 
been so convinced. I have been shown a letter on 



184 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

this subject, supposed to be an able one, in which the 
writer expresses regret that my mind has not seemed 
to be definitely fixed on the question whether the 
seceded States, so called, are in the Union or out of it. 

5 It would perhaps add astonishment to his regret were 
he to learn that since I have found professed Union 
men endeavoring to make that question, I have pur- 
posely forborne any public expression upon it. As 
appears to me, that question has not been, nor yet is, 

10 a practically material one, and that any discussion of 
it, while it thus remains practically immaterial, could 
have no effect other than the mischievous one of 
dividing our friends. As yet, whatever it may here- 
after become, that question is bad as the basis of 

is a controversy, and good for nothing at all — a 
merely pernicious abstraction. 

We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are 
out of their proper practical relation with the Union, 
and that the sole object of the government, civil and 

20 military, in regard to those States is to again get 
them into that proper practical relation. I believe 
that it is not only possible, but in fact easier, to do this 
without deciding or even considering whether these 
States have ever been out of the Union, than-with it. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 185 

Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly 
immaterial whether they had ever been abroad. Let 
us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring the 
proper practical relations between these States and 
the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge 5 
his own opinion whether in doing the acts he brought 
the States from without into the Union, or only gave 
them proper assistance, they never having been out 
of it. The amount of constituency, so to speak, on 
which the new Louisiana government rests, would ic 
be more satisfactory to all if it contained 50,000, or 
30,000, or even 20,000, instead of only about 12,000, 
as it does. It is also unsatisfactory to some that the 
elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I 
would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the 15 
very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as 
soldiers. 

Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana 
government, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. 
The question is, will it be wiser to take it as it is and 20 
help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it ? Can 
Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation 
with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding 
her new State government? Some 12,000 voters 



186 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

in the heretofore slave State of Louisiana have sworn 
allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the right- 
ful political power of the State, held elections, organ- 
ized a State government, adopted a free-State con- 
5 stitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally 
to black and white, and empowering the legislature to 
confer the elective franchise upon the colored man. 
Their legislature has already voted to ratify the con- 
stitutional amendment recently passed by Congress, 

10 abolishing slavery throughout the nation. These 
12,000 persons are thus fully committed to the 
Union and to perpetual freedom in the State — com- 
mitted to the very things, and nearly all the things, the 
nation wants — and they ask the nation's recognition 

15 and its assistance to make good their committal. 

Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost 

to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say 

to the white man: You are worthless or worse; we 

will neither help you, nor be helped by you. To the 

20 blacks we say: This cup of liberty which these, your 
old masters, hold to your lips we will dash from you, 
and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled 
and scattered contents in some vague and undefined 
when, where, and how. If this course, discouraging 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 187 

and paralyzing both black and white, has any ten- 
dency to bring Louisiana into proper practical rela- 
tions with the Union, I have so far been unable to 
perceive it. If, on the contrary, we recognize and 
sustain the new government of Louisiana, the con- 5 
verse of all this is made true. We encourage the 
hearts and nerve the arms of the 12,000 to adhere to 
their work, and argue for it, and proselyte for it, and 
fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and ripen it to a 
complete success. The colored man, too, in seeing 10 
all united for him, is inspired with vigilance, and 
energy, and daring, to the same end. Grant that 
he desires the elective franchise, will he not attain 
it sooner by saving the already advanced steps toward 
it than by running backward over them ? Concede 15 
that the new government of Louisiana is only to 
what it should be as the egg is to the fowl, we shall 
sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by 
smashing it. 

Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one 20 
vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the na- 
tional Constitution. To meet this proposition it has 
been argued that no more than three-fourths of those 
States which have not attempted secession are neces- 



188 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

sary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not com- 
mit myself against this further than to say that such 
a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be 
persistently questioned, while a ratification by three- 

5 fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and 
unquestionable. I repeat the question : Can Louisi- 
ana be brought into proper practical relation with the 
Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new 
State government ? What has been said of Louisiana 

10 will apply generally to other States. And yet so great 
peculiarities pertain to each State, and such impor- 
tant and sudden changes occur in the same State, and 
withal so new and unprecedented is the whole case, 
that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be 

15 prescribed as to details and collaterals. Such ex- 
clusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new 
entanglement. Important principles may and must 
be inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase 
goes, it may be my duty to make some new announce- 

20 ment to the people of the South. I am considering, 
and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will 
be proper. 



NOTES 



Page 1. This was Lincoln's first public address, and the 
earliest product of his pen, he being only twenty-three 
years old. He was defeated; it was his first and only 
defeat by a direct popular vote. 

The paragraphs strike the keynotes of Lincoln's career. 
You may try to characterize these. Note the style : direct- 
ness and simplicity. 

II 

Page 3. Lincoln, eager in his desire for education and 
practice in public speaking, had helped to organize the 
Young Men's Lyceum at Springfield. This ambitious 
oratorical effort was well received, was published in the local 
newspaper, and increased the young orator's reputation. 
It strikes another great note : Lincoln's profound reverence 
for law and order under the Constitution, as the pillars of 
that "proud fabric of freedom" reared by the Fathers of 
the Republic. The style is more consciously elaborate, and 
the essay is obviously a rhetorical " effort." 

Ill 

Page 11. William H. Herndon's account of how this 
debate came about gives us a picture of these early days 
of political activity. The store-gatherings which figure 

189 



190 NOTES 

so continually in Lincoln's life were the great school and 
training ground of the young politicians. 

"One evening, while the usual throng of loungers sur- 
rounded the inviting fireplace in Speed's store, the con- 
versation turned on political matters. The disputants 
waxed warm and acrimonious as the discussion proceeded. 
Business being over for the day, I strolled back, and seating 
myself on a keg, listened with eager interest to the battle 
going on among those would-be statesmen. Douglas", I 
recollect, was leading on the Democratic side. He had 
already learned the art of dodging in debate, but still he 
was subtle, fiery, and impetuous. He charged the Whigs 
with every blunder and political crime he could imagine. . . . 
At last, with great vehemence he sprang up and abruptly 
made a challenge to those who differed with him to discuss 
the whole matter publicly, remarking that, ' this store is no 
place to talk politics."' — The contest was arranged, with 
four on each side, and each speaker given an evening. 
"Lincoln occupied the last evening, and although the people 
by that time had grown a little tired of the monotony and 
well-worn repetition, yet Lincoln's manner of presenting 
his thoughts and answering his Democratic opponents 
excited renewed interest. So deep was the impression he 
created that he was asked to furnish his speech to the 
Sangamon Journal for publication." 

Here appears one of the innumerable anecdotes with which 
Lincoln so habitually illustrated his speeches to the delight 
of his Western audiences. 



NOTES 191 



IV 



Page 15. We here skip a considerable period of time. 
Lincoln had been elected to Congress in 1846, and made 
a few speeches there during his single term of service. He 
then returned to Springfield to resume his practice of the 
law. The first period of his public life had ended. Six 
years of assiduous work and widening experience as a 
travelling lawyer were to prepare him for the greater labors 
of his second and final period of political effort consummated 
by his election as President of the United States. He was 
now thirty-nine years of age. It is curious to find him 
speaking of himself as being already old. Writing to Mr. 
Herndon "to say that Mr. Stevens of Georgia, a little slim, 
pale-faced, consumptive man, . . . has just concluded the 
very best speech of an hour's length I ever heard," he adds, 
"My old, withered, dry eyes are full of tears yet." Again, in 
another letter written to Herndon a little later (July 10, 1848), 
he says, " I suppose I am now one of the old men." The 
letter is so finely characteristic that the rest of it should be 
printed here: "I suppose I am now one of the old men; 
and I declare, on my veracity, which I think is good with 
you, that nothing could afford me more satisfaction than 
to learn that you and others of my young friends at home are 
doing battle in the contest, and endearing themselves to 
the people, and taking a stand far above any I have ever 
been able to reach in their admiration. I cannot conceive 
that other old men feel differently. Of course I cannot 
demonstrate what I say; but I was young once, and I am 



192 NOTES 

sure I was never ungenerously thrust back. I hardly know 
what to say. The way for a young man to rise is to im- 
prove himself every way he can, never suspecting that 
anybody wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you 
that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any 
situation. There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts 
to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, 
if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to 
brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if 
this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known 
to fall into it." 

The Peoria speech in reply to Douglas meant Lincoln's 
return to politics. It was called forth by the passage of 
the Kansas- Nebraska Act of 1854 and the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise. The Act dealt with the organization 
of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and contained 
the proviso that they should be free to organize their do- 
mestic institutions, including slavery, each in its own way, 
subject only to the Constitution of the United States. 

The passage of the Act was due to the extraordinarily 
effective labors of Stephen A. Douglas in the Senate. It 
stirred the country, and aroused great anger in the North. 
Once more Lincoln found himself face to face with his old 
antagonist. "The Little Giant," as Douglas was styled, 
" is always in sight," says Herndon. The speech is a sort of 
prelude to the series of Joint Debates between Lincoln and 
Douglas in the senatorial campaign of 1858. In it the great 
slavery issue looms up; and Lincoln broadly states his 
position. 



NOTES 193 



Page 30. These passages from a letter to his friend Speed 
supplement the foregoing speech at Peoria in a more per- 
sonal way. 

VI 

Page 35. The famous Dred Scott decision had been 
handed down by the Supreme Court on 6th March, 1857. 
Scott was a negro slave who had been brought from Missouri 
to Illinois, where slavery was illegal, and then into the 
Louisiana Territory (now Minnesota), and was there sold 
to a new master, whose right to hold him Scott disputed, 
claiming that his residence in a free State had given him his 
liberty. The Supreme Court, presided over by Chief 
Justice Taney, had before it two questions : first, whether 
Scott was a citizen of the United States entitled as such to 
bring suit in the courts ; and, second, whether his residence 
on free soil for two years made him free. It decided 
(with two important dissenting opinions) : 1st, that negroes 
were not included in the statement of the Declaration of 
Independence that all men are created equal; in other 
words, that " negroes had no rights which the white man 
was bound to respect"; 2d, that no negro could become a 
citizen of the United States; 3d, that the right to hold 
slaves as property was affirmed in the Constitution; 4th, 
that neither Congress nor any territorial legislature could 
exclude slavery from any Territory. 



194 NOTES 



VII 



Page 49. This famous speech, commonly known as the 
" divided house " speech, from the Biblical allusion in the 
opening paragraph, probably affected Lincoln's career more 
fatefully than any other speech of his. It lost him the 
senatorship in 1858, and won him the Presidency in 1860 — 
at least, that is the plausible view. On the 16th June, 1858, 
the Illinois Republican Convention unanimously nominated 
Lincoln as their " first and only choice for the United States 
Senate as the successor to Stephen A. Douglas." On the 
evening following the nomination, Lincoln opened his cam- 
paign with this speech. It was a bold oratorical utterance, 
and created a sensation in Illinois, and then throughout 
the country. Lincoln knew that he was nailing a dangerous 
flag to the masthead. He had prepared his speech in antici- 
pation of his nomination with the greatest care. He had 
read it first to his intimate friend Herndon, and later to 
a group of friends whose opinions he invited. But Mr. 
Herndon's account of the circumstances is so very interest- 
ing that we must quote from it : — 

" He had been all along led to expect it, and with that in view 
had been earnestly and quietly at work preparing a speech in 
acknowledgment of the honor about to be conferred on him. 
This speech he wrote on stray envelopes and scraps of paper, 
as ideas suggested themselves, putting them into that miscel- 
laneous and convenient receptacle, his hat. As the conven- 
tion drew near, he copied the whole on connected sheets, care- 
fully revising every line and sentence. . . . After he had 



NOTES 195 

finished the final draft of the speech, he locked the office door, 
drew the curtain across the glass panel in the door, and read 
it to me. At the end of each paragraph he would halt and 
wait for my comments. I remember what I said after 
hearing the first paragraph, wherein occurs the celebrated 
figure of the house divided against itself: 'It is true, but 
is it wise or politic to say so?' He responded: 'That ex- 
pression is a truth of all human experience, " a house divided 
against itself cannot stand," and "he that runs may read." 
The proposition also is true, and has been for six thousand 
years. I want to use some universally known figure ex- 
pressed in simple language as universally well known, that 
may strike home to the minds of men in order to raise them 
up to the peril of the times. I do not believe I would be 
right in changing or omitting it. I would rather be de- 
feated with this expression in the speech, and uphold and 
discuss it before the people, than be victorious without 
it.' " — " Abraham Lincoln," by Herndon and Weik, Vol. II, 
pp. 66' and 67. See also the account of the consulta- 
tion with his friends, "not one of whom endorsed it" 
(pp. 68-99). 

We must admire Lincoln's noble stand; but his cautious 
and alarmed friends were right as to the immediate effect 
of the speech. His enemies hailed it as the best of cam- 
paign documents in their favor. So it proved. Douglas made 
it food for his powder throughout the campaign; and he 
won. But Lincoln was the master of a larger strategy. 
The far-sighted view he took, and maintained throughout 
the campaign in all his speeches, and in the great debates 



196 NOTES 

with Douglas, matured public opinion, and brought him the 
later nomination for the Presidency. 

The speech is admirably written and constructed, and is 
worthy of study as a connected whole. We may note the 
great skill with which Lincoln insinuates that there had been 
a conspiracy or collusion between the two Presidents (Pierce 
and Buchanan, his successor), Chief Justice Taney, and 
Senator Douglas, as leader of the Democrats in the Senate, 
to nationalize slavery; that is, between the "Stephen and 
Roger, and Franklin and James" of his speech. 

52 : 23. Senator Trumbull, a judge of the Supreme Court 
in Illinois, and later a United States senator, was one of 
Lincoln's most powerful supporters in the campaign. 

54 : 1. The Silliman letter was addressed to President 
Buchanan in 1856 by citizens of Connecticut, Professor 
Silliman of Yale being prominent among them, on the state 
of affairs in Kansas. 

60 : 3. McLean or Curtis: two Northern members of 
the Supreme Court (which consisted of five Southern and 
four Northern members) who dissented from the majority 
opinion in the Dred Scott decision. 

60 : 6. Chase and Mace: Chase, an anti-slavery senator 
from Ohio, was Douglas's chief opponent in the debate on 
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill; Mace, a Democratic represent- 
ative from Indiana, also opposed the Bill. 

VIII 

Page 65. Douglas lost no time in replying to Lincoln's 
speech. As quickly as possible after his return from Wash- 



NOTES 197 

ington to his home in Chicago a public reception was given 
to him by his friends, and from the balcony of the Tremont 
House he made his speech on 9th July, 1858. Lincoln, who 
was on friendly terms with Douglas, was present at the re- 
ception; and after Douglas had concluded, there were calls 
for him. "He appeared, and quietly said that the hour 
was late, the audience weary, and that to answer Judge 
Douglas one must begin earlier in the evening. He did not 
know that he should be able to answer him, but those who 
cared to hear him try, would come there next evening." 
(From Chittenden's " Abraham Lincoln's Speeches," p. 86.) 

74 : 6. In this mighty issue. . . . With this personal 
reference we may compare the closing words of a speech given 
at Beardstown, 12th August, 1858, which contains a eulogy 
of the Declaration of Independence that ranks it, in 
Herndon's opinion, with the Gettysburg address. It is 
quoted by Herndon (Vol. II, pp. 84-85). The conclusion 
runs : — 

" Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the 
blood of the Revolution. Think nothing of me; take no 
thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever, but 
come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of In- 
dependence. You may do anything with me you choose, 
if you will but heed these sacred principles. You may not 
only defeat me for the Senate, but you may take me and 
put me to death. While pretending no indifference to 
earthly honors, I do claim to be actuated in this contest 
by something higher than an anxiety for office. I charge 
you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for 



198 NOTES 

any man's success. It is nothing; I am nothing; Judge 
Douglas is nothing. But do not destroy that immortal 
emblem of humanity — the Declaration of American In- 
dependence." 

IX 

Page 84. This is the only passage we give from the 
historical debates between Douglas and Lincoln in the 
campaign in which they contested for the United States 
senatorship. It is an important summing up, although 
not in Lincoln's best manner, being somewhat repetitious. 
The debates should be studied as a whole, or at least the 
more important of them (this may be done in the con- 
venient volume edited by Bouton, published by Holt & Com- 
pany) . A general idea of the series may be gained from the 
graphic account written by Mr. Horace White in Herndon's 
"Life" (Vol. II, pp. 86-132). Mr. White concludes his account 
by saying: "I think this was the most important intel- 
lectual wrestle that has ever taken place in this country, 
and that it will bear comparison with any that history men- 
tions. Its consequences we all know. It gave Mr. Lincoln 
such prominence in the public eye that his nomination to 
the Presidency became possible and almost inevitable. It 
put an apple of discord in the Democratic party which hope- 
lessly divided it at Charleston, thus making Republican 
success in 1860 morally certain. This was one of Mr. 
Lincoln's designs." 



NOTES 199 



Page 94. This speech, commonly regarded as one of 
Lincoln's great speeches, was an important factor in his 
prospects. It was his personal introduction to the East, 
and it made him a presidential possibility. He realized its 
importance, and after his acceptance of the invitation of the 
Young Men's Central Republican Union of New York City, 
he devoted himself with great assiduity to the preparation 
of his speech. Here was a challenge to him to test his 
prowess before an audience very different in character from 
those to which he had appealed in the West. The Eastern 
people were anxious to see and hear the man who had be- 
come a national figure in his debates with Douglas. 

It was a great audience which gathered at Cooper In- 
stitute; it was cultured and critical, and included men 
eminent in all walks of life. Lincoln was escorted to the 
platform by Horace Greeley and David Dudley Field. 
William. Cullen Bryant, who presided, introduced him, and 
beside him on the platform were men like Henry Ward 
Beecher and Joseph Choate. Mr. Choate has recorded that 
Lincoln seemed ill at ease, beforehand, as in fact he after- 
wards admitted. Mr. Herndon recorded that for the first 
time Lincoln felt somewhat ashamed of his clothes, — ill- 
fitting and creased as his newly purchased suit was. But 
he rose to the occasion, and when he had warmed up to the 
work, he held the closest attention of his audience. He 
did so by the sheer weight of his matter and the masterly 
lucidity and utter simplicity of his style. "It was mar- 






200 NOTES 

vellous,*' says Mr. Choate, "to see how this untutored man, 
by mere self-discipline and the chastening of his own spirit, 
had outgrown all meretricious arts and found his way to the 
grandeur and strength of absolute simplicity." The re- 
straint which he showed in speaking of the South and of 
slavery was as effective as the fervor of his closing periods 
of moral appeal. 

The speech made a powerful impression. All the papers 
printed it in full the next day. Horace Greeley's paper, the 
Tribune, remarked : " The vast assemblage frequently rang 
with cheers and shouts of applause, which were prolonged 
and intensified at the close. No man ever before made such 
an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience." 
And Greeley, later recalling the event, wrote: "I do not 
hesitate to pronounce Mr. Lincoln's speech the very best 
political address to which I ever listened, and I have heard 
some of Webster's grandest. As a literary effort it would 
not of course bear comparison with many of Webster's 
speeches; but regarded as an effort to convince the largest 
number that they ought to be on the speaker's side, not on 
the other, I do not hesitate to pronounce it unsurpassed." 

XI 

Page 118. The scene in the dingy waiting room when 
Lincoln's friends and neighbors bade him good-bye on his 
departure for the Capital was deeply affecting. As they 
filed past, he silently shook their hands. It was only after 
the presidential party had boarded the train and the con- 
ductor was about to give the signal to start that Lincoln 



NOTES 201 

spoke these few simple and touching sentences from the 
platform. Note especially the words which hint a pre- 
monition that this might be a final parting. 

XII 

Page 119. At various towns on the way to Washington 
Lincoln delivered short addresses, from which we select the 
most significant and characteristic. A sense of the im- 
pending crisis pervades them all. It must be recalled that 
after Lincoln's election, the South, declaring him to be 
"a sectional and minority President," seceded from the 
Union, organized a Confederate government, and seized 
upon Federal property. It is to face this grave situation 
that Lincoln is journeying to the Capital and the White 
House. 

It will be noted that in the address at Trenton, on the 
eve of Washington's birthday, Lincoln makes an apposite 
and interesting allusion to one of the few books of his boy- 
hood, — Weems's " Life of Washington." On the day follow- 
ing, Washington's birthday, he finds himself " filled with deep 
emotion," in the historic Independence Hall, Philadelphia, 
"from which sprang the institutions under which we live." 
Here he was called upon to raise a flag in honor of the recent 
admission of Kansas as a State of the Union. The last 
words of the speech reflect no doubt rumors then current 
that personal violence would be attempted against the new 
President. 

It may be recalled that when the body of the murdered 
President was taken back to Springfield to be buried on 3d 






202 NOTES 

May, 1865, the route was the same as that followed on this 
Eastward journey. This was done at the earnest request 
of the towns along the route, eager to honor the man who 
had quickened in the hearts of the citizens a deeper affection 
than any which had ever been evoked by a Chief Magis- 
trate of the Nation. 

XIV 

Page 130. This Inaugural Address was delivered on 
4th March, 1861, a little more than a month before the actual 
outbreak of hostilities between the North and the South. 
Lincoln had organized the government, and his Cabinet 
included Seward, Chase, and Stanton. The Confederate 
government had also been provisionally organized, with 
Jefferson Davis as President; and besides seizing Federal 
property, it had invested Fort Sumter and had declared 
itself out of the Union. 

Lincoln wrote the address before coming to Washington, 
and submitted it for criticism to men whose judgment he 
valued, and by whose criticisms he profited. Finally, he 
sought William Seward's opinion. Seward approved of 
the "strong and conclusive" argument, but thought that 
"some words of affection, some of calm and cheerful con- 
fidence, should be added." By way of illustrating he wrote 
out a paragraph, the substance of which Lincoln liked. 
But Seward's manner was not Lincoln's; and so Lincoln 
made several changes in it. There is no more interesting 
study in Lincoln's style than is afforded by the comparison 
of the two versions. Here the}' are: — 



NOTES 



203 



" I close. We are not, we 
must not be, aliens or ene- 
mies, but fellow-countrymen 
and brethren. Although pas- 
sion has strained our bonds 
of affection too hardly, they 
must not, I am sure they 
will not, be broken. The 
mystic chords which, pro- 
ceeding from so many bat- 
tlefields and so many patriot 
graves, pass through all the 
hearts and all hearths in 
this broad continent of ours, 
will yet again harmonize in 
their ancient music when 
breathed upon by the guar- 
dian angel of the nation." 



" I am loath to close. We 
are not enemies, but friends. 
We must not be enemies. 
Though passion may have 
strained, it must not break 
our bonds of affection. The 
mystic chords of memory, 
stretching from every battle- 
field and patriot grave to 
every living heart and 
hearthstone all over this 
broad land, will yet swell 
the chorus of the Union 
when again touched, as 
surely they will be, by the 
better angels of our nature." 



The Address is quiet and simple; and therefore it dis- 
appointed many who expected a brilliant rhetorical flourish. 
It was calculated to allay passion; and the more it was 
studied, the better it was liked. 

It was delivered to a vast crowd. Lincoln was well heard, 
and every sentence was followed with rapt and eager atten- 
tion. Few things are more significant of Lincoln's relations 
with men, and with rivals and opponents, than the fact that 
when he rose to speak the man who took his hat was his 
old friend and enemy, "the little giant," Stephen A. 



204 NOTES 

Douglas, and that the judge who administered the oath was 
Chief Justice Taney of the Dred Scott case, of whom Lincoln 
had so freely spoken his mind. 

XV 

Page 148. Horace Greeley, a distinguished editor but a 
somewhat severe critic of the Administration, published in 
the New York Tribune of 20th August, 1862, — at the 
very time when Lincoln was considering the issuing of 
his Proclamation of Independence, — an open letter ad- 
dressed to Lincoln entitled The Prayer of Twenty Millions, 
severely criticising him for giving in too much to pro-slavery 
sentiment, and failing to satisfy the hopes of twenty millions 
of loyal people. 

XVI 

Page 151. This letter is especially interesting from the 
fact that Lincoln, when he wrote it, had made up his mind 
to issue a Proclamation of Emancipation, and was only 
biding his time. A few days later, following the battle of 
Antietam, he issued his provisional proclamation. The 
letter shows how well he could formulate the case against 
his contemplated course of action. 

XVII 

Page 157. The provisional Proclamation, dated 22 Sep- 
tember, 1862, had announced that on the 1st January fol- 
lowing he would declare all slaves " within any State or any 



NOTES 205 

designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be 
in rebellion against the United States, " thenceforward and 
forever free. 

XVIII 

Page 161. Unlike the well-to-do people and tradesmen of 
England, the workingmen sympathized largely with the 
North. Notwithstanding the fact that Manchester was 
hard hit by the blockade of the Confederate ports during 
the war, the workingmen of that city sent an address to 
the President, expressing their support of his policy. 

XIX 

Page 165. In June, 1863, a meeting had been held in 
Springfield, Illinois, to express hostility to the government, 
and to advocate the formation of a Northwestern Con- 
federacy. To counteract this, the Republicans decided to 
hold a mass-meeting, and the committee of arrangements, 
of which' J. C. Conkling was chairman, invited Lincoln 
to speak. This is his reply. 

XX 

Page 174. At Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, were fought 
in July, 1863, the great battles which proved to be the turn- 
ing point of the war. It was decided to dedicate a portion 
of the battle-ground as a national cemetery, and the solemn 
ceremony took place there on 9th November, 1863. The 
oration of the day was given by one of the most finished 
speakers of the country, Edward Everett; and after his 



206 NOTES 

long and eloquent oration, the President rose to add a few 
words — this classic of eloquence, which ranks with the 
greatest examples of ancient and modern times. It con- 
clusively places Lincoln among the great masters of English 
speech. 

Lincoln felt, after he had spoken, that his speech was a 
failure. (This has been made the theme of a charming story, 
"The Perfect Tribute," by Mary Shipman Andrews, which 
the student is urged to read.) Not so others, as is shown 
by the letter which Everett wrote to him the day after the 
ceremonies, to which Lincoln replied as follows : — 

Executive Mansion, Washington, November 20, 1863. 
Hon. Edward Everett: 

My dear Sir: Your kind note of to-day is received. In 
our respective parts yesterday, you could not have been 
excused to make a short address, nor I a long one. I am 
pleased to know that, in your judgment, the little I did say 
was not entirely a failure. Of course I knew Mr. Everett 
would not fail, and yet, while the whole discourse was emi- 
nently satisfactory, and will be of great value, there were 
passages in it which transcended my expectations. The 
point made against the theory of the General Government 
being only an agency whose principals are the States, was 
new to me, and, as I think, is one of the best arguments for 
the national supremacy. The tribute to our noble women 
for their angel ministering to the suffering soldiers sur- 
passes, in its way, as do the subjects of it, whatever has 
gone before. 



NOTES 207 

Our sick boy, for whom you kindly inquire, we hope is 
past the worst. 

Your obedient servant 

A. Lincoln. 
XXI 

Page 176. This is a unique state document — "the 
most sublime state paper of the century," said an authorita- 
tive English newspaper. State documents do not usually 
throb with deep feeling as this does; nor are they expres- 
sions of religious aspiration and hope. Now that the 
end of the war seems to be near, Lincoln's great nature, 
deepened and refined by four years of anguish, dares to 
express itself. But he is master of his emotions, and finds 
fitting language for them; wonderfully effective language; 
simple and direct as ever, but, with the possible exception 
of the Gettysburg Address, more deeply freighted with 
feeling. Indeed, opinions are divided as to which is the 
high- water mark of Lincoln's genius: Lincoln himself 
seemed to prefer this Inaugural. He wrote to Thurlow 
Weed as follows : — 

Executive Mansion, Washington, March 15, 1865. 
Dear Mr. Weed: 

Every one likes a compliment. Thank you for yours on 
my little notification speech and on the recent inaugural 
address. I expect the latter to wear as well as — perhaps 
better than — anything I have produced; but I believe 
it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by 
being shown that there has been a difference of purpose 



208 NOTES 

between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in 
this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world. 
It is a truth which I thought needed to be told, and, as 
whatever of humiliation there is in it falls most directly 
on myself, I thought others might afford for me to tell it. 

Truly yours, 

A. Lincoln. 
XXII 

Page 180. Lincoln delivered this address three days 
before his assassination. It looks toward the bright future, 
and outlines his policy of reconstruction. 



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